AxCrypt is a free, open source, GNU GPL-licensed encryption tool for Windows that prides itself on being simple, efficient, and easy to use. It integrates nicely with the Windows shell, so you can. Funny how people spend lots of money on proprietary apps and then they try to patch their insecurities and privacy flaws with free software.
Part 0 – Introduction Here’s my basic guide for PGP on OS X. The OS in question is OS X 10.9 Mavericks, but it should still work for other versions. As for the tool itself, we’ll be using GPG Suite Beta 5. This is my first time using OS X in years. If you see anything I’m doing wrong, or could be done easier, feel free to correct me in the comments. If you’ve done your research, you’ll see it’s not recommended to do anything darknet related on OS X, but I’m not going to go over the details here.
You’ve obviously made your decision. Part 1 – Installing the software Like I said above, we’ll be using GPG Suite Beta 5. If you’re curious and want to see the source code, you can do so. Head on over to, and download ‘GPG Suite Beta 5′. Open the file you downloaded, you should see this screen.
Double click on ‘Install’. Follow the installation process. If successful, you should see this screen. You can now close the window Part 2 – Creating your keypair GPG Suite actually makes this a super simple process. Just like the Linux guide, we’ll be using 4096 bit length for encryption. Open up GPG Keychain, you should be greeted by this beautiful window. Click ‘New’ at the top left of the window.
You should see a small popup. Click the arrow beside ‘Advanced options’, make sure the key length is 4096. For our purposes, we’ll uncheck ‘key expires’. Put your username where it says ‘full name’, fill out what you want for email, and create a secure passphrase. Check the picture for an example on how to fill it out.
When complete, click ‘Generate key’. GPG Keychain will begin generating your key. Move the mouse around, mash keys in a text editor, have something downloading. Do random stuff to create entropy for a secure key. annndddddd we’re done!
![Pgp Pgp](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125414837/649478020.png)
Part 3 – Setting up the environment This is where OS X differs from other platforms. The suite itself doesn’t provide a window to encrypt/decrypt messages, so we need to enable some options. Go into system preferences, open up ‘Keyboard’. You should see this window. Click the ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ tab at the top, then ‘Services’ in the left pane. Scroll down in the right pane to the subsection labeled ‘Text’, and to the OpenPGP options. Here you can create keyboard shortcuts.
We’ll uncheck everything OpenPGP that’s under ‘Text’, and delete their shortcuts. Now we’ll enable ‘Decrypt’, ‘Encrypt’, and ‘Import key’.
Create keyboard shortcuts for these if you wish. Check the picture to make sure you’re doing everything correctly. You can now close the window. Part 4 – Obtaining your public key This part is super simple. Open up GPG Keychain, select your key. At the top of the window, click ‘Export’.
Give it a name, make sure ‘include secret key in exported file’ is unchecked, and click ‘save’. Open your text editor of choice, browse to where you saved the key, open it.
There it is. Copy and paste this on your market profile to make it easier for people to contact you Part 5 – Obtaining your private key Again, super simple. Open up GPG Keychain, select your key. At the top of the window, click ‘Export’. Keep the file name it gives you, check ‘Include secret key in exported file’, then click save Keep this file in a safe place, and don’t forget your passphrase. You’re fucked without it!
Part 6 – Importing a public key This is really easy. Find the key you want to import. Copy everything from ‘—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–‘ to ‘—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–‘. Paste it into your favourite text editor, highlight everything, right click, go to ‘Services’, then ‘OpenPGP: Import key’. You’ll see this window pop up confirming the key has been imported, click ‘Ok’. Open up GPG Keychain just to confirm the key is there Part 7 – Importing a private key Again, really easy.
Open GPG Keychain, click ‘Import’ at the top. Browse to where your key is, click it, then click ‘Open’. It should have a.asc file extension.
You’ll see this pop up confirming your key has been imported. Click ‘Close’ Part 8 – Encrypting a message. Open your text editor of choice, write your message. Highlight the message, right click, ‘Services’, ‘OpenPGP: Encrypt’. A window should appear.
Select who you’re sending it to, sign it with your key if you wish, click ‘Ok’. Copy everything, and send it to the recipient Part 9 – Decrypting a message Pretty much the same process as encrypting. Open your text editor of choice, paste the message. Highlight everything, right click, ‘Services’, ‘OpenPGP: Decrypt’. A window should pop up.
Enter your passphrase, then click ‘Ok’. aannnddddd there’s your message Part 10 – Conclusion That wasn’t too hard, was it?
Like I said in the intro, you shouldn’t be using OS X for DNM activities due to privacy issues, but I won’t go into it. This took forever to complete because OS X is a bitch to get running properly in a virtual machine. A guide for Windows will be coming next week!
Is the art of creating mathematical / information theoretic assurances for who can do what with data, including but not limited to the classical example of encrypting messages so that only the key-holder can read it. Cryptography lives at an intersection of,. This subreddit is intended for links and discussions surrounding the theory and practice of modern and strong cryptography. Please note that this is a technical subreddit, not a political one! The focus is on the algorithms and the security of the implementations. RULES (along with normal ) Don't forget to read our! The rules listed there are also used as this sub's report reasons.
The quick version;. Assume good faith and be kind. This is a friendly subreddit. Codes, simple ciphers, ARGs, and other such 'weak crypto' don't belong here. (Rule of thumb: If a desktop computer can break a code in less than an hour, it's not strong crypto.) You're probably looking for. Do not ask people to break your cryptosystem without first sharing the algorithm. 'Crack this cipher' challenges also belong in unless they're based on interesting crypto implementation bugs, e.g.
Weak RSA keys. Familiarize yourself with the following before posting a question about a novel cryptosystem, or else the risk is nobody will take their time to answer:. Don't use this sub to cheat on competitions or challenges!
You're expected to solve such problems yourself. You may ask for help to understand it, but you should disclose the source. Systems that use crypto are not necessarily relevant here, e.g. Political news also very rarely belong here. See the list of related subs below for alternatives.
Remember that this sub is focused on the algorithms, and isn't political. Great tutorial! The only thing I would take issue with (and I'm being picky: I think he did this for convenience) is composing the draft in your email client before signing/encrypting it. Most email clients will auto-save drafts of your email while you're working on it, and those drafts often get saved to the mail server (so you can pick up where you left off later from another computer if needs be).
That means while you're writing it, your email that's sensitive enough to need encryption is being pushed up to your provider in the clear. Yes, drafts are deleted from the server (you hope!), but not until after the mail's sent. If it's genuinely sensitive (and not just being encrypted because encrypting everything is a good idea), compose it in a standalone text editor first, sign/encrypt it, and then drop the message into your email client when it's fully baked and ready to send. I suppose it depends on your use case, but for any long term security of messages you plan to send, a false sense of security is harmful. This article advocates for a setup that's inherently vulnerable while discouraging people from adopting a secure setup.
It also makes the claim that it's 'The best PGP tutorial for Mac OS X ever'. I've seen other articles that suggest this in the past, and sometimes they go one step further and recommend 'turning off gmail's draft saving feature'. This still results in all the problems of, which without some serious thought isn't a long term solution. Maybe things like this will get the ball rolling, but I'm skeptical. There are other reasons Why Johnny Can't Encrypt.