Crypt::PGP5 giving me a headache

nahdoic

Has anyone used this perl module before?

I really must just be missing something here. I don't see why it's so complicated.

Could someone please show me how to do one or more of the following:

a) make any public key and its corresponding private key

b) encrypt a piece of text using that public key

c) decrypt that text using the private key

Isn't that how PGP works? Maybe I just don't understand the basics and that's why it's not working. *sigh* this module has given me a major headache! Any help is much appreciated. Or would you recommend using a different perl module like Crypt::OpenPGP? Or if you know how to do it in maybe PHP or java. I'll try anything at this stage.

---

use Crypt::PGP5;
$pgp = new Crypt::PGP5;


$pgp->secretkey ($keyid); # Set ID of default secret key.
$pgp->passphrase ($passphrase); # Set passphrase.
$pgp->armor ($boolean); # Switch ASCII armoring on/off.
$pgp->detach ($boolean); # Switch detached signatures on/off.
$pgp->encryptsafe ($boolean); # Switch paranoid encryption on/off.
$pgp->version ($versionstring); # Set version string.
$pgp->debug ($boolean); # Switch debugging output on/off.


$signed = $pgp->sign (@message);
@recipients = $pgp->msginfo (@ciphertext);
$ciphertext = $pgp->encrypt ([@recipients], @plaintext);
($signature, $plaintext) = $pgp->verify (@ciphertext);
($signature, $plaintext) = $pgp->dverify ([@signature], [@message]);


(Most of the methods below will be encapsulated into the
Crypt::PGP5::Key class by next release, bewarned!)


$pgp->addkey ($keyring, @key);
$pgp->delkey ($keyid);
$pgp->disablekey ($keyid);
$pgp->enablekey ($keyid);
@keys = $pgp->keyinfo (@ids);
$keystring = $pgp->extractkey ($userid, $keyring);
$pgp->keypass ($keyid, $oldpasswd, $newpasswd);
$status = $pgp->keygen
($name, $email, $keytype, $keysize, $expire, $pass);

nahdoic

So no one is used to using PGP encryption with Perl or PHP?

nahdoic

Well it took me a couple of days, but i have finally got it working ( on my own :rolleyes: ).

I ended up not using PGP5. There just seemed to be so many restrictions on it, about having to have licenses for commercial use, and apparently it is illegal for an american hosting company to offer the use of PGP to other countries? How that law can be enforced or be at all effective I have no idea. Instead i used www.gnupg.org , which is free from all licenses and worked a treat in the end. If anyone needs to get a PGP type system set up again i'd recommend it.

And an excellent site on getting your PGP working can be found here http://www.verysimple.com/scripts/support_pgp.html

Although gnupg does have some annoying quirks. Like it needed me to generate lotsa random ENTROPY for it to use to generate my random key. But because my freebsd build was too efficient it could never make enough to use. Instead I had to install it and run it on my inefficient windows to make enough ENTROPY for it use to generate my randon enough keys. Weird.

Hmmm, ever get the feeling you're talking to yourself!

scojones

i use gnupg too. it's great.