SecureEmail

From OPeNDAP Documentation
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Secure Email

Sometimes it's very important to be sure who you are communicating with and that only that person or group of people can read your messages. The GPG software provides a way to do that usiing Public Key Cryptography.

See [#Encryptingfiles below] for information on using gpg to encrypt files so only a designated set of recipients can read them.

First off, since we use Macs for most of our admin work, getting GPG/PGP on a mac and integrated into the mailer is pretty important. You can use the gpg software as a command-line tool, too, but it's nice to have its function integrated into the mailer, at least those for encrypting, decrypting and signing messages. I also use Thunderbird on Linux, and it's got a neat plugin for GPG which I describe here.

Get the basic software

  • First, get PGP itself from http://macgpg.sourceforge.net/. All you need to do is to download the package and install it. The package installs it all in the correct places.
  • Trick: If you have keys on another system and you want to use them on your mac, just copy the entire `.gnupg` directory to your home directory on the mac (`scp -r <machine>:.gnupg .`).
  • If you don't have a key made up, use gpg to make one. How? see How to make keys or `man gpg`

Get a decent key manager (?)

  • I think most of the GUI stuff is a waste, but GPG Keychain Access (it's at the same place as the base software) seems OK. Really, on the mac the gpg command line tool seems like the best bet for working with keys. You need to do a very few things with the keys: make keys, export the public keys, sign other people's keys. The GUI doesn't do a good job of any of those things

Integrating GPG with a mailer

Mac Mail

  • Get PGP For Apple's Mail. To install, stop Mail, run the script 'Install GPGMail'.
  • Done. There are some menu items you should look at Preferences... and the Message and Window menus. It's really pretty slick.
  • When you use the command line tool to import keys (described below) be sure to update the mailer using the GPG menu option under the Windows menu.

Thunderbird

There's a great plugin for pgp on Thunderbird named Enigmail. You'll need Thunderbird 2.x, but both are easy to get. Combined, they make for a great mailer on Linux systems. Be careful with your private keys if you use the copy trick I show above... The fewer places you have your private key, the less likely it is to get out into the wild.

Digital Signatures for OPeNDAP

This describes how to encrypt files and sign source and binary packages for distribution.

How to make keys

Here's a short description, but it's really incomplete. There's a great PGP/GPG guide which is well worth reading over. Even though it's 40 pages, you really can get a lot out of the first 5 or 6. With that in mind:

  • Make a key using `gpg --gen-key`. Make the default kind so you can sign and encrypt. When you give it an email address, make sure that's the one you will use. If you want support for more than one email, make keys for each one. (There might be other ways to support multiple emails with one key using subkeys.)
  • You need to get your (public) keys to people. Use `gpg --export --armor --output <filename> <email for key>`. By convention the file name ends in `.asc`. You send this file to people and they import it.
  • The --armor option encodes the public key in 7-bit ASCII so it's mailer-safe. Binary ones are a pain and might not work for your recipient.
  • When you make your key, or shortly thereafter, make a revocation key too. This way if you forget the password to your private key you can declare it invalid, issue a new key, and so on. Really, don't forget your key's password and don't let the private key get onto some else's computer.
  • Here's how to import: `gpg --import <file>`. I've also found that the GPG Keychain Access program imports keys pretty well.
  • Read the GPG Guide for more information about signing keys, files, all that jazz.

Protecting keys

It's important to keep the private key private! Since people really trust this stuff, if someone gets your private key it will be very hard to convince other people the stuff they did with it was not your doing. So,

  1. Do not let it get away from you!
  2. Choose a good password when you make the key.
  3. Do not forget that password. If you do, ...
  4. Use a revocation key to invalidate the key.
  5. Store as few copies of the private key as you can.
  6. Burn it to a CD-ROM, etc., but make sure that it is not on the USB drive you take to that meeting... ;-)

Encrypting files

To encrypt a file, use `gpg` with the `-e` and `-s` (`--encrypt --sign`) switches. These select encryption and signing. Encryption is obvious; signing is a good idea since it proves to the recipient that you did, in fact, perform the encryption as well as when you did it. The command looks like:

`gpg -e -s <filename>`

The gpg program will then prompt you for your password (to sign the encrypted file) and the recipients email addresses (so their public keys can be used for the encryption). It's pretty verbose so you can tell what's going on. Enter the recipients one per prompt and use a blank line to end the recipients.

To encrypt a file using a specific key (e.g., using a key other than one bound to your ID), use the `--local-user <key ID>` option where `<key ID>` is the email address bound to that key. If you're using the OPeNDAP key to encrypt something, use the OPeNDAP key's ID for the ID of the recipient.

Decrypting files

To decrypt a file use the `-d` (`--decrypt`) command. You need to be one of the intended recipients to do this and you'll need the private key's password.

Detached signatures

Detached signatures are a way to ensuring the integrity of a file without altering the file by binding a digital signature directly to it. You can make a detached signature using gpg:

`gpg --local-user <key ID> --detach-sign <file>`

The result is that `<file>` will be signed using `<key ID>` (if you want to sign using your default private key you can omit this option) and the signature (which will be a binary file) will be written to `<file>.sig`. The --armor option will write out the signature in ASCII.

If you have a large number of files you need to sign, you can use the following:

for f in *.rpm
do 
    gpg --batch --passphrase <password> --batch --detach-sign --local-user security@opendap.org $f
    echo $f
done

Where `pw_tmp` holds the pass-phrase text that you would normally type in once for each file. NB: You may be able to omit the pw_tmp file (an still avoid typing the same password over and over if gpg is setup to remember passwords for a short time (as it is on OS/X).

But you must be very careful to immediately delete the pw_tmp file right away because it contains the private key's pass-phrase. This will stave off insanity when you have to sign 30 rpms and dmgs for the complete source and binary distributions on Linux and OS/X. Just remember to delete that file right away...

Using detached signatures

To verify a signature, you must have the public key matching the private key that made the signature. In the directory with the signed file, use:

`gpg --verify <file>.sig`

Keyservers

A keyserver provides a way to store your public key in a place where people will know to look for it (for example, the Mac Mail plugin knows about keyservers). One keyserver is at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net. There's some good documents describing key servers available.

Note: Once you submit a public key to a keyserver, it can be very hard to get it off that server, especially since most of the servers synchronize with other keyservers. Make sure you generate a revocation key and save it off if you do use a keyserver.

13 Aug 2007