GNU Privacy Guard

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Template:Infobox software GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG) is GPL Licensed alternative to the PGP suite of cryptographic software. GnuPG is compliant with RFC 4880, which is the current IETF standards track specification of OpenPGP. government]].<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

GnuPG was initially developed by Werner Koch. Version 1.0.0, which was the first production version, was released on September 7, 1999, almost two years after the first GnuPG release (version 0.0.0).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology funded the documentation and the port to Microsoft Windows in 2000.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

GnuPG is a system compliant to the OpenPGP standard, thus the history of OpenPGP is of importance; it was designed to interoperate with PGP, the email encryption program initially designed and developed by Phil Zimmermann.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Stable 2.0 branch was initially released on 13 November 2006.<ref name="gnupg-2.0-announcement">Template:Cite web</ref> Template:As of, latest version of 2.0 branch is 2.0.26, released in August 2014.<ref name="gnupg-2.0.26-announcement" /> The older stable 1.x branch, whose latest version 1.4.18 was released in June 2014,<ref name="gnupg-1.4.18-announcement" /> will be continued in parallel with the new GnuPG 2 series because there were significant changes in the architecture of the program which will not fit every purpose.<ref name="gnupg-2.0-announcement" />

On February 7, 2014, a GnuPG crowdfunding effort closed, raising 36,732 euros for a new web site and infrastructure improvements.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Usage

Although the basic GnuPG program has a command-line interface, there exist various front-ends that provide it with a graphical user interface. For example, GnuPG encryption support has been integrated into KMail and Evolution, the graphical e-mail clients found in KDE and GNOME, the most popular Linux desktops. There are also graphical GnuPG front-ends (Seahorse for GNOME, KGPG for KDE). For Mac OS X, the Mac GPG project provides a number of Aqua front-ends for OS integration of encryption and key management as well as GnuPG installations via Installer packages.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Furthermore, the GPGTools Installer<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> installs all related OpenPGP applications (GPG Keychain Access), plugins (GPGMail) and dependencies (MacGPG) to use GnuPG based encryption. Instant messaging applications such as Psi and Fire can automatically secure messages when GnuPG is installed and configured. Web-based software such as Horde also makes use of it. The cross-platform extension Enigmail provides GnuPG support for Mozilla Thunderbird and SeaMonkey. Similarly, Enigform provides GnuPG support for Mozilla Firefox. FireGPG was discontinued June 7, 2010.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2005, G10 Code and Intevation released Gpg4win, a software suite that includes GnuPG for Windows, Gnu Privacy Assistant, and GnuPG plug-ins for Windows Explorer and Outlook. These tools are wrapped in a standard Windows installer, making it easier for GnuPG to be installed and used on Windows systems.

Other software wraps the command line in a Perl script (e.g. gpg-dialog) that is menu based.

Process

GnuPG is a hybrid encryption software program in that it uses a combination of conventional symmetric-key cryptography for speed, and public-key cryptography for ease of secure key exchange, typically by using the recipient's public key to encrypt a session key which is only used once. This mode of operation is part of the OpenPGP standard and has been part of PGP from its first version.

GnuPG 2.x series use Libgcrypt as an encryption library, while GnuPG 1.x series do not use it and use an integrated library.

GnuPG encrypts messages using asymmetric keypairs individually generated by GnuPG users. The resulting public keys may be exchanged with other users in a variety of ways, such as Internet key servers. They must always be exchanged carefully to prevent identity spoofing by corrupting public key ↔ "owner" identity correspondences. It is also possible to add a cryptographic digital signature to a message, so the message integrity and sender can be verified, if a particular correspondence relied upon has not been corrupted.

GnuPG also supports symmetric encryption algorithms. By default GnuPG uses the CAST5 symmetrical algorithm.

GnuPG does not use patented or otherwise restricted software or algorithms. Instead, GnuPG uses a variety of other, non-patented algorithms.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

For a long time it did not support the IDEA encryption algorithm used in PGP. It was in fact possible to use IDEA in GnuPG by downloading a plugin for it, however this might require a license for some uses in countries in which IDEA was patented. Starting with version 1.4.13/2.0.20, GnuPG supports IDEA because the last patent of IDEA expired in 2012 (Support of IDEA is "to get rid of all the questions from folks either trying to decrypt old data or migrating keys from PGP to GnuPG",<ref>Template:Cite mailing list</ref> and is not recommended for normal use).

As of versions 2.0.26 and 1.4.18, GnuPG supports the following algorithms:

GnuPG 2.1 series will support elliptic curve cryptography (ECDSA, ECDH, EdDSA).

Limitations

GnuPG is a command-line based system, that is not written as an API which may be incorporated into other software. GPGME is an API wrapper around GnuPG which parses the output of GnuPG, and various graphical front-ends based on GPGME have been created. This currently requires an out-of-process call to the GnuPG executable for many GPGME API calls. Because GPGME makes use of a special GnuPG interface designed for machine use, a stable and maintainable API between the components is given. Possible security problems in an application do not propagate to the actual crypto code due to the process barrier.

Problems

The OpenPGP standard specifies several methods of digitally signing messages. In 2003, due to an error in a change to GnuPG intended to make one of those methods more efficient, a security vulnerability was introduced.<ref>Phong Q. Nguyen "Can We Trust Cryptographic Software? Cryptographic Flaws in GNU Privacy Guard v1.2.3." EUROCRYPT 2004: 555–570</ref> It affected only one method of digitally signing messages, only for some releases of GnuPG (1.0.2 through 1.2.3), and there were fewer than 1000 such keys listed on the key servers.<ref>GnuPG's ElGamal signing keys compromised Werner Koch, November 27, 2003</ref> Most people did not use this method, and were in any case discouraged from doing so, so the damage caused (if any, since none has been publicly reported) would appear to have been minimal. Support for this method has been removed from GnuPG versions released after this discovery (1.2.4 and later).

Two further vulnerabilities were discovered in early 2006; the first being that scripted uses of GnuPG for signature verification may result in false positives,<ref>False positive signature verification in GnuPG Werner Koch, February 15, 2006</ref> the second that non-MIME messages were vulnerable to the injection of data which while not covered by the digital signature, would be reported as being part of the signed message.<ref>GnuPG does not detect injection of unsigned data, Werner Koch, March 9, 2006</ref> In both cases updated versions of GnuPG were made available at the time of the announcement.

In popular culture

In May 2014, The Washington Post reported on a 12-minute video guide "GPG for Journalists" posted to Vimeo in January 2013 by a user named anon108. The Post identified anon108 as fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who it said made the tutorial—"narrated by a digitally disguised voice whose speech patterns sound similar to those of Snowden"—to teach journalist Glenn Greenwald email encryption. In an update to the article, Greenwald confirmed to the Post that Snowden did author the video.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

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References

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External links

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