22.04.03 - Guaranteed Personal Groaning
GPG can be a little tricky for beginners. Which is why the people at GnuPG have decided to make it more difficult. I'm sure that makes sense some how, I just can't be bothered to find out which how it is.
Now I'm not sure at what point this happened because I can't remember which version I was using before I upgraded (and no I can't find out, at least not without moving or something) but it seems that gpg stopped working the way it used to without freaking well telling us about it . If you are experiencing problems encrypting messages to your fellow terrorists with Evolution and you have recently upgraded your version of gpg then read on. If on the other hand you're not a terrorist and have no intention of blowing up Maddam Tussaudes in London at 18:27 on the 23rd of June this year, then forget everything I've said. Forget, forget, fooorgeaat. Sleep.
Okay now that we've gotten rid of those pesky non-terrorists, to work we go. What is the message you're getting from Evolution? Not very helpful is it? Okay try using gpg straight from the command line instead. Something like this should shed some light;
gpg -ea <filename>GPG will tell you that you didn't specify a user id and that you should enter one now. Type in a user id that you know for a fact exists in your keyring (if you want to check which user ids should be available then try this; "gpg --list-keys"). Now press enter and enter again, despite what it asks for on the prompt (I know, it's confusing).
If everything went well then you should see an encrypted copy of the file in the same directory with the extension ".asc". If this is the case then you can stop reading now 'cause I don't know what's wrong with your freaking installation. If on the other hand gpg says that there is no public key available for that uid then you're reading the right blant! Lucky you.
Okay the problem is that gpg now only accepts keys which are trusted to a degree - in other words, have a trust value of more than nothing. This makes sense to me, sort of, but I wish they made some sort of announcment or something! As there's nothign to indicate that this is why the public key - which is quite clearly there - is not there, as far as gpg is concerned. Okay enough.
The solution is to bump up the trust levels of all your public keys. Of course it's a good idea to actually check them out - for example you could check the fingerprints over the phone like paranoid colin did with my key. Once you've checked all your keys (or not, if you're a lazy trusting sod like me), you can increase the trust values on them like this;
gpg --edit-key <uid>This will present you with an "interactive" menu system. One - I should point out - of the most confusing I have ever come accross. Okay flame me for being stupid but it took me ages to figure this out. To select the key enter the number that's next to it. For example if the first key on the list is the one you want and it has the number "1" on the left of it, then press "1 " followed by enter. Now a star will come up next to your selection. Next enter "trust". You will be given a choice of 5 trust values to choose from. Choose whichever one is appropriate and hit enter. If all went well you should see the trust valaue next to the key on the upper right hand corner change from "-" to whatever the new trust value is (for example "u/-").
Now you should be able to encrypt to that public key. If not then I would suggest harming yourself and others. But mostly others. But mostly the gpg team. Okay just the gpg team.
splinter "gnu pile gdriver" khan