Bah dum ba... 1st: A problem with this list is its huge signal to noise ratio. If you don't have an answer to give jokes are less than helpful.
2nd: Louie, the answer to your question is: You don't need just a gpg public key. What you probably want is a gpg key pair. Having just a public key doesn't do you much good. You need both a private key and a public key; the two keys together make up an asymmetric key pair. (and they are dependent on each other; you can just use any public key with any private key. they have to be created together. Since your post implies you may be new to the world of asymmetric ciphers I'll add a little bit of theory here... symmetric ciphers are ones such that only a single key is needed. You use the single key to turn plaintext into cipher text by encrypting the plaintext with the key (well actually you use an algorithm that requires both the key and the plaintext as input.) its "symmetric" because to turn the ciphertet back into plaintext (decryption) you use the same key. This has some disadvantages: anybody that knows the key can encrypt and decrypt anything to/from you and they can even give the key away and then basically everybody can encrypt and decrypt your messages and you are just wasting time. They don't readily support current security concepts of digital signatures. But they are very strong for their key size (in bits) compared to what I will now describe... So along comes asymmetric key systems. basically you have two keys A and B. If you encrypt with key A you need to know only key B to decrypt it. GPG, RSA, PGP take this a bit further they also support the fact that if you encrypt with B you can decrypt the message with A. (not all asymmetric systems do B->A) So what? Well let's call A "private" and B "public". (we could have called either one private it wouldn't matter.) Nobody, and I mean nobody, else should ever know the private key other than the owner (i.e. you). But *everybody* can/should/may be allowed to have complete knowledge of the "public" key. Now if they want to send you a message that only you can read they encrypt the message with your public key knowing that only you possess the private key necessary to decrypt the message and other people who also know the public key still can't decrypt it because the public key won't decrypt that which was encrypted using the public key. (If you want to send encrypted messages to them you need to know *their* public key and encrypt with that. (that part is a bit unintuitive to security beginners who are use to using the same set of secrets to both send and receiver messages.) But now you can also digitally sign messages. You simply encrypt the message with your private key. people know your public key and only the public key will decrypt the message is if it was encrypted with your private key. AND *only* you know the private key. Therefor if the public key successfully decrypts the message then it must have been you that wrote it. So it good to have a private key for signing your outgoing mail so that others can know and use your public key to verify that you actually wrote the messages. This is glossing over a lot of the problems associated with two sticky points: 1) how do you reliably distribute your public key? 2) What happens if somebody else actually does come to know your private key? (this requires the ability to "revoke" a key pair.) These are why Veri$ign charges $75 per year to maintain certificates on their distribution system. anyhow, that was a lot of theory, here's your answer... ############################################################## This is what you really wanted to know... gpg --gen-key ############################################################## it will interactively ask you a bunch of questions. You probably want DSA ElGamal keys since these let you sign and encrypt stuff keysize of 1024 is ok, but some recent work in the area of number theory indicates that somebody with about 10 billion dollars can create a specialized computer capable of cracking such keys in a not-unreasonable period of time. I go with 2048, the disadvantage is that it takes quite a bit more processor time to sign and encrypt using larger keys. It also makes your armor (ascii) representation of your public key crazy huge. you will be asked for a passphrase... This is sort of like a password. actually its a symmetric key that you pick that will be used to encrypt your private key. This way even if your system gets stolen that can't figure out what the private key is since it, itself, is encrypted. Anything that needs access to your private key such a mail user agent will prompt you for this passphrase. Want to be fascist like me? check out http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html its a system for creating memorizable passphrases that are many words long. each letter of such a passphrase generates approximately 3 bits of entropy (random data). So a such a passphrase consisting of 6 words with an average length of 4 characters generates 24 characters * 3 bits = 72 bits. Thus your private key will be encrypted with a strength roughly equal to a purely random 9 character password. But you'll be able to remember it (while we are back on theory: symmetric keys are generally stronger than asymmetric systems. it takes about 1024 bit asymmetric keys to obtain the same strength as an 80 bit symmetric key. Such such a passphrase it really strong. Oh... you're second question is gonna be... what happened to the keys gpg generated? Well it stored them on your "keyring". you collect keys and store them on this "ring" and then you can select which one you want to use to decrypt or encrypt something. But you need to get your public key in an exportable fashion... ###################################################################### Your second bit of meat... gpg --export --armor ###################################################################### now you can give the resulting block to the rest of the world. (I've assumed you only have one public key on your keyring. gpg --list-keys gpg --list-public-keys gpg --list-private-keys will show you your various keys. Though since you are asking about creation you'll probably just have the one single public key and the above command will export the armor block version of it to stdout. gpg --export --armor somestring would export the public key that has "somestring" as part of the name given to it when it was created. umm... sorry for the length but it should have answered your question and more. last tip... "evolution" is apretty good graphical mail user agent and it has good support built in for signing and encrypting mail using GPG/PGP What you should wind up with is something that looks like this... -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) mQGiBD8czdURBACrz4UfwKHHqIFBa+1spiFn8OJ+JoHyZpUlDZXjV5qWMLTjJ+FD S1YTHWAb49n9e+ZwzlPiHs5tSeKXK3bKHddwrmuBscRe1ZXKZunN1U/TDd49VZbD 5YHWdxCQwnLK3RnZ/oVhqvSLEV9F8ACcBkaegrOj3iDIVxEvxww3RZzVfwCgvHs2 caFrD9FqgDSbIoZe7NsQrTED/0T+XdIxtDjNQNdA5TS7E1HdIBqXsen3hygYsre/ 3O8cmD8uwINhygYu4VUXmMRBOnt3AzKdIm72UV2ShtrVL3V6qJDIGwhx4mlolKer 325mR1OfDSsHE2G3cSmmbdsptFdtdldpTZ9ZxKW5vfnQkcWXHwBQ+I7LfVuqg2cw XEULA/0aTAJYf9DHnBilqmPRtixgT9c47ZWsreSF3wD07Q0T4YotzIHsvmKJgA6X mEwB/Q7PQWhzYgL9WyRzNF3dxlZ855jUBiyJOpSBTXFDs625U3/384l+h+2cGAyk 0GMQ0xuh4N7vicwwj/gJic3nsoimoBedtPmkrIvBZ+GCXBi6VrQlSmVmZnJleSBX aWVnbGV5LCBQaEQgPGplZmZ3QGN5dGUuY29tPohZBBMRAgAZBQI/HM3VBAsHAwID FQIDAxYCAQIeAQIXgAAKCRBMXNqawuYjSSW6AJ95YTZMycvSTNDBtrttOTj0l3LT 7wCdHGdFrzBiGQezckJOLKwkihGbxim5Ag0EPxzN3xAIALrNh1X84y42rZyLfn72 s5KChctZskNuCAbcEtxCNDEFNx9FzRvzv9T3j30RF8dE66phRcAZwvuF1PKUbw3a ojIFTm1Ow50p1cVxXnfNh0IOsfElrUz9Tor4yQxZkoUUS190eCb6FCk3vB7wC1vK ilKtdkl6UCzxbwOZhpqBxQ49jidDz9DoAUFiZn7+Fcey9ZaDsMDN0xqIabvrv1BP zy58lHCX8j5wpcIsjBBbQ77kUUWkdQYqdqznHoWd7JgTWMngfHAnktUgZsrXxes6 t6nLrabjsGhhh9fzv31/hVmvYWKh0fBn5bDEXJlq0252QSqjsVpqrj1QcFd6+kSt JzcAAwUH/0DmAI0yOUopFP+G4NCuJ1Jp/2FtRjkAIM8gRHFLxojpyB6lk9wykrms wmuS3JBw5smpZ20DIUU8vca82nWxQgk9XE8G/qwVrWH+oTfyS3nnOKWuaZyDx40a b16Gudp/wQMIex9kvN51PjPc2ltW94OzPwJ7c0nnqyXZWirlxBphuQjuXHJDl6qZ rlHvQYGD5FNAxNyM4EERJi3bU4L9QZ1QqepJ/ppYAcVLqRS7RlCs/r0rGgubwb8o uZlYkmTeoB1vSSzzaGcrAcP3eos3oJsPIxQAN+YY0DCVfdUCyAurQWrAfy/P79Wm ziSP26VJK3x7OTMcpYWyBCTu5rUfYriIRgQYEQIABgUCPxzN3wAKCRBMXNqawuYj SXOUAJ91l+Rng/ZpVl9YEmYLLzENX2hLZwCgg4yfhVq6gWe48+YwQ29z8IA5iJw= =Fvnd -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- which I just generated using the above two commands. For more see "man gpg". Sorry if you already knew all the theory stuff and were just having gpg syntax problems. - Jeff On Mon, 2003-07-21 at 22:35, Michael D. Crawford wrote: > > How can i have a gpg public key? > > Go to a locksmith in your nearest town and ask them to cut you one. They keep > blanks on hand. > > Warmest regards, > > Mike > -- > Michael D. Crawford > GoingWare Inc. - Expert Software Development and Consulting > http://www.goingware.com > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow. > > "I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak > out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, > be in doubt, but don't be gagged." > -- John J. Chapman, "Make a Bonfire of Your Reputations" > http://www.goingware.com/reputation/ > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]