Silk Road forums

Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: slade17 on June 12, 2013, 01:40 am

Title: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: slade17 on June 12, 2013, 01:40 am
So, I know PGP is a way to encrypt messages so that a third party couldn't read them. I have a few questions about this.

First of all, how common is this to use? I'm about to make my first order, and I'd like to follow suit. If I send the vendor an encrypted message, is he going to be like, "the fuck is this?" Also, in what way would I use it? Like, would I use it to send my name and address? Finally, could somebody link me to a tutorial on how to do it (if it's necessary I learn for VERY occasional purchases)?

I'm admittedly being a little lazy since I'm sure I could find the answers with more searching around, but Tor is unbearably slow on my laptop and thought I'd give this a shot instead.

Thanks in advance.

Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: fije on June 12, 2013, 04:56 pm
You should use PGP for both your and your vendor's protection. Some vendors want to use it, some couldn't care less.

Personally for what is a little effort (when you're up to speed) I think you should always use it when communicating with your vendor on SR, either when sending them a message that has personally identifiable/liable content, or always when your providing your mailing address in the shopping cart/buying page.

Are you using a PC or Mac and I'll dig out some instructions for you.
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: fredphatu1 on June 12, 2013, 05:00 pm
I am on pc and would like some instructions
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: fije on June 12, 2013, 05:26 pm
I am on pc and would like some instructions

Here's some links to look up. I'm a Mac user so can't be of specific help as PGP (known as GPG) works a little differently on a Mac:

**NB: THESE ARE NORMAL/CLEARNET LINKS**

http://aplawrence.com/Basics/gpg.html
http://axion.physics.ubc.ca/pgp-begin.html
http://www.queen.clara.net/pgp/pgp.html
http://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-users/2008-September/034645.html

Essentially the routine is you copy your recipients Public Key and import this into PGP.

Now create a message and save it as a text file.

Back in PGP (which is usually a terminal/CMD command line program) you encrypt the text file using the public key. The public key is usually identified by an email address displayed when importing the key.

During the encryption process, look for an option called 'amour' which ensures the outputted encrypted file of your message is in ASCII rather than binary so it can be opened in a text editor and copied and pasted into your SR message, address box, email, etc.

Hope it helps...
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: jedilight on June 12, 2013, 05:53 pm
I didn't know this was important to do.
Seems a bit complicated but i'm sure i'll get
Thanks for sharing.
I'm a newbie
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: fije on June 12, 2013, 05:56 pm
I didn't know this was important to do.
Seems a bit complicated but i'm sure i'll get
Thanks for sharing.
I'm a newbie

I thought it was complicated at first, but when you get the swing of it, its a snip. Definatley worth using, but if you get stuck, as a questing in the newbie thread and someone will help.
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: 4thdimensionabsurdist on June 12, 2013, 06:07 pm
"Tor is unbearably slow on my laptop "

....what?
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: WonkaLaffyTaffy on June 12, 2013, 06:19 pm
It is pretty cool that we have access to military grade encyrption, might as well use it. ROT13 is good too.
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: slade17 on June 13, 2013, 11:34 pm
"Tor is unbearably slow on my laptop "

....what?
Why is that confusing?

Anyway, thanks for the replies. I found a tutorial on Youtube and made an order using it GPA to encrypt my address. The order shipped so I guess it worked.
Title: Re: Absolute newb question, but the community seems nice enough (PGP related)
Post by: jedilight on June 14, 2013, 12:34 am
I'm a P.C. user. What program should I download for p.c. not mac

I would say PGP use is very common here, I mean most vendors list their public key on their vendor page, and some ask you send your public key to them with the order in case they need to contact you.

What I did was download GPGwin, then I made some keys for myself and practiced a few times, encrypting my message with my own public key, and decrypting it with my private key to make sure I knew how it worked first.

Then I did the same thing, but using the vendor's public key. Then the vendor uses their private key to decrypt.

There's a web site that I've seen mentioned, it appears to do the encryption using Javascript (which should help keep your message more secure since it isn't making a round trip to the server to send your unencrypted message to be encrypted), at www.hanewin.net/encrypt/PGpubkey.htm (NOTE clearnet link!)