What The F%$^ Is PGP?

What is a public key? Do I have one?

A PGP key pair is composed of a public key you distribute to the world, and a private key you keep secret. Key pairs have to be generated manually so if you're unfamiliar with the concept, you probably don't have a public key.

You can learn more about generating a key in the Setup Guide.

How do I decrypt a message?

A standard PGP encrypted message looks something like this:

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

jA0ECQMCjjUDHDqNrcjj0koBpnxch3LKE+HB8JytBMBYcMYE/sD8xnir6Tdk/EqK
AS9opHgGOgGJlks7GGcvGAC6Aas0jf39QF040fRAc9JurrfWPY5VmlWzDg==
=p5Qo
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

This simplest way to decrypt a PGP message is to use the GNU implementation of PGP, GnuPG.

$ gpg --decrypt /path/to/message

You can find GnuPG installation instructions in the Setup Guide.

This is the best thing since RSA! Where can I find more information?

Check the navbar along the top of the page or any of these fine sources:

• GnuPG Homepage