On Mon, 23 May 2011 10:21:46 -0600, Paul E Condon wrote: > On 20110523_103153, Camaleón wrote:
(...) >> Better that removing "gnome-keyring" (I dunno if it is even possible >> because I think is a key component of the whole GNOME stack) try to >> configure it first or disable some elements that are annoying you, like >> the above post (and also README.Debian file) suggests :-) > > OK. Mike's email was helpful. But as I learn and try things, a shift in > my goals is happening. Gnome-keyring might actually be useful to me, if > I could just find a plausible explanation of what it does and how to use > it to advantage. You can see gnome-keyring like a "holder" for all of the gnome passwords you need to use for any application that requires them (like GPG/PGP or the own gnome modules for user's authentication). How useful is that? Well, I barely use that directly, but I know gnome does and if gnome is happy with it I'm also happy :-) > I think that pgp/gpg is already in use on my computer as part of the > whole Debian package repositories thing. The security aspects of that > happen without me having to do anything. It just comes as part of the > Debian offering. OTOH pgp/gpg signing of documents is something I have > never attempted to do because the vocabulary used in the documentation > that I have found is foreign to me and I have been unable to find time > to actually understand it. So, could I use Gnome-keyring to help me get > started in encrypting/signing documents? Nope... at least not directly, gnome-keyring (now Seahorse) just keeps track and helps you with the key management and certificates. Is the one in charge of asking you the right passphrase for decrypting documents or e-mails (or to mount an ecrypted volume). KDE handles with by means of Kleopatra, IIRC. > Would it really help? Or is it just another layer of obfuscation? Why obfuscation? It's a helper :-? > If it would really help, I don't want to get rid of it. Instead I want > to find a useful tutorial on how to use it. Gnome documentation is > pretty much useless to me when used by itself. It never defines the > words it uses, even in contexts where it is glaringly obvious that the > standard dictionary meaning cannot be what is intended. If you use GPG/PG certs every day, the gnome-keyring is very handful but if you don't make use of encrypted documentation nor e-mails, the keyring is just another neutral application (you rarely have to deal with it). > (An example of my ignorance: what is a software 'keyring'? Of course, it > has something to do with security, but what? Is it an agent? or a > database? or a repository? or what?) A "keyring" is a concept/term used in encryption. Wikipedia will explain this better than me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Keyring In encryption scope: http://www.pgpi.org/doc/pgpintro/#p11 Greetings, -- Camaleón -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/pan.2011.05.23.16.41...@gmail.com