Silk Road forums

Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: gn0ssos on September 29, 2013, 06:04 pm

Title: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: gn0ssos on September 29, 2013, 06:04 pm
So I've been using GPG Tools/Keychain Access for the past couple weeks, just learned how to use PGP. I've made two orders on SR that as far as I know were successful. I haven't received them yet but they're both In Transit. I did have trouble with one of them, the vendor asked me to send the message again because for some reason he couldn't open it, but the second time I sent it I'm assuming it worked because he marked it In Transit.

So now, over a week later, I'm trying to encrypt a message and the recipient can't open it. I tried sending it twice to two different PGP Keys of theirs and they said it keeps popping up 'PGP Key Not Found' or something to that extent. Tried it several times. Their key seems to be importing correctly, the name pops up in my Keychain just fine. I select the text, hit the command to encrypt and select and be sure to check off the recipient's name, but they still can't open it.

Please help! I plan to put in a couple more orders today and I can't figure out what's wrong with my PGP! Anyone want to send me their key so they can see what's going on? Thanks.
Title: Re: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: mCokeHead on September 29, 2013, 06:23 pm
So you need to encrypt the message with their public key, is that what you are doing? I would remove any keys you have already and try importing their key again
Title: Re: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: gn0ssos on September 29, 2013, 06:40 pm
So you need to encrypt the message with their public key, is that what you are doing? I would remove any keys you have already and try importing their key again

It looks like it might be a problem with my key because multiple recipients have had problems opening encrypted messages I sent them, it looks as if the error is that my public key isn't found. I could try that though, maybe deleting the keys and importing again.
Title: Re: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: gn0ssos on September 29, 2013, 08:14 pm
*bump* Really need help with this... might just ask in the PGP sticky...
Title: Re: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: mCokeHead on September 30, 2013, 12:06 am
So you need to encrypt the message with their public key, is that what you are doing? I would remove any keys you have already and try importing their key again

It looks like it might be a problem with my key because multiple recipients have had problems opening encrypted messages I sent them, it looks as if the error is that my public key isn't found. I could try that though, maybe deleting the keys and importing again.

When you encrypt something for someone you use THEIR public key. Really you don't need a key for pgp. You communicate using theirs. You encrypt things with their public key, and they decrypt it using their own private key.
Title: Re: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: gn0ssos on September 30, 2013, 02:19 am
So you need to encrypt the message with their public key, is that what you are doing? I would remove any keys you have already and try importing their key again

It looks like it might be a problem with my key because multiple recipients have had problems opening encrypted messages I sent them, it looks as if the error is that my public key isn't found. I could try that though, maybe deleting the keys and importing again.

When you encrypt something for someone you use THEIR public key. Really you don't need a key for pgp. You communicate using theirs. You encrypt things with their public key, and they decrypt it using their own private key.

I know. When it asked for the recipient, I checked off their name. It's all good though, sent a test message to someone in the PGP thread and it worked. Guess it must've been a problem on the other end, not sure...
Title: Re: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: mCokeHead on September 30, 2013, 03:13 am
So you need to encrypt the message with their public key, is that what you are doing? I would remove any keys you have already and try importing their key again

It looks like it might be a problem with my key because multiple recipients have had problems opening encrypted messages I sent them, it looks as if the error is that my public key isn't found. I could try that though, maybe deleting the keys and importing again.

When you encrypt something for someone you use THEIR public key. Really you don't need a key for pgp. You communicate using theirs. You encrypt things with their public key, and they decrypt it using their own private key.

I know. When it asked for the recipient, I checked off their name. It's all good though, sent a test message to someone in the PGP thread and it worked. Guess it must've been a problem on the other end, not sure...

That's great. Glad you got it all fixed up. PGP seems so complicated when you don't know what it is. Seeing all those "BEGIN PGP KEY" or "START PGP BLOCK" or whatever, it all seems intimidating or at least it did for me. When I actually got to using it and get the idea behind it, I see that it is ridiculously simple
Title: Re: *HELP* PGP Key Not Found?
Post by: GreenKarma on September 30, 2013, 03:41 pm
So you need to encrypt the message with their public key, is that what you are doing? I would remove any keys you have already and try importing their key again

It looks like it might be a problem with my key because multiple recipients have had problems opening encrypted messages I sent them, it looks as if the error is that my public key isn't found. I could try that though, maybe deleting the keys and importing again.
Like mCokeHead said, your key is irrelevant to them reading the message. You can't even decrypt your own message once you have encrypted it. The only key involved is their public key.