GPG guide/Public Review

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Welcome, and thanks for giving feedback on Email Self-Defense

Instructions

Follow the guide at https://EmailSelfDefense.fsf.org.

Please leave your feedback as bullets in the feedback section. Make sure to include: what step your feedback refers to (unless it's more general), how experienced you are with GPG, and what operating system you are using.

For example:

  • I couldn't find the "Key Management" menu item mentioned in step 3 of section 2. I'm using Windows 8 and I've used GPG a little bit before. Zakkai 18:30, 22 May 2014 (EDT)

Unless you're already a Free Software Foundation member, you'll need to make an account on this wiki to leave feedback. If you find that someone else has already said what you want to say, just add your name after theirs.

When you are done, please, make a note here of your username and how far you got by typing four consecutive tildes in a bullet on a new line in the contributors section. Semantic MediaWiki will automatically insert your username.


Feedback

If you left feedback during development and don't see it here, don't worry - the FSF made good use of it and has it saved. Thank you very much, you caught a lot of things.

  • I love this guide! I think it would be good if there were more graphics and more detailed explanation of the Web of Trust. Kojakr 00:08, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Thank you, I'll take that into consideration. Zakkai 00:08, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • Is there a plan on translating the website for non English speakers ? -- lsix 15:48, 5 June 2014
    • The Free Software Foundation doesn't have the staff to do it in house, but we'd gladly collaborate with anyone who'd like to help. If you are interested in working on it, send an email to campaigns@fsf.org. Zakkai 13:29, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
    • I have translated the guide into German. --Gpcf 08:43, 13 June 2014 (EDT)
  • As I faced it, maybe add to section 2B troubleshooting: Q:"My key doesnt appear in the list", A:"clic on the Checkbox 'Show default keys' " --jdedev16:26, 5 June 2014 (Paris time)
    • Added, thanks Zakkai 13:05, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • Step 3.A: "From here one," should be "From here on,". --Mtraceur 10:33, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Fixed, thanks Zakkai 13:05, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • In the "be wary of invalid keys" section, "which which might have fallen into the wrong hands" should only have one "which". --Mtraceur 10:37, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Fixed, thanks Zakkai 13:05, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • Step 3.A: the Adele mail address isnt indicated, first notice of it is in section 3.B --> maybe make it very clear : "Put at least one word (whatever you want) in the subject and body of the email, address your mail to adele-en@gnupp.de then hit send" --jdedev16:42, 5 June 2014 (Paris time)
    • Fixed, thanks Zakkai 13:05, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • The Windows and Mac OS pages don't explain how to obtain and install GnuPG itself, which is not available by default on these operating systems. Jmorahan 11:28, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Yikes! That was there earlier and somehow got deleted. Fixed now, thanks Zakkai 13:05, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • The Windows page (step 6.B) points out that Mac OS (rather than Windows, as presumably intended) is a nonfree operating system. Jmorahan 11:28, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Fixed, thanks Zakkai 13:05, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • You have to be logged in to edit this wiki. How will we get feedback from muggles? Sebboh 12:22, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Haha, I think they can figure it out. I mentioned it in the instructions above. Zakkai 13:05, 5 June 2014 (EDT) (FSF campaigns manager)
  • The Windows page needs specific instructions for specific email providers and email clients. Here's an example.. https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/1668960?hl=en&ref_topic=3397500 See, first they tell the user how to enable IMAP or POP, then they offer specific setup instructions for specific mail clients. We need to do that or link to it. Can we find similar guides for Yahoo, Apple's mail thing, and Hotmail? Does anybody have an up-to-date list of the most common email providers? Sebboh 12:22, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
  • When running the enigmail wizard, it wants to modify some email client preferences. The average user might not be familiar enough with these preferences to allow enigmail to modify them. Perhaps the guide could have some notes about this? Maybe buried in the troubleshooting dialog. <average_joe> What if I want to read/send HTML emails? What's this 8-bit encoding thingy? </average_joe> The specific preferences I refer to are:
    • "Disable loading IMAP parts on demand"
    • "Disable flowed text (RFC 2646)"
    • "View message body as plain text"
    • "Use 8-bit encoding for message sending"
    • "Do not compose HTML messages" Whizbo 14:09, 5 June 2014 (EDT)
    • In Step 3B, the instructions say, "Click Download Missing Keys and use the default in the pop-up that asks you to choose a keyserver." But where is "Download Missing Keys" in Mac>Thunderbird? (I'm a newbie w. GPG.)
  • The Enigmail plugin is very difficult for a common user. Cant we do all the key generation and all other stuff in the background? The user should be only required to provide a password for the GPG. All other things should happen in the background. The fingerprint checking and all other stuff is over rated. Ofcourse.. some one can impersonate if we dont verify a public key. But that can happen even now. The millions of emails being sent and received daily, do you think all of them are impersonations because there is no public key to be verified? No. People generally get to know if the real person is sending the mail or not. Users, when they slowly get to know the definitions and meaning of PGP, they will start to verify the public key and such. As of now, our aim must to be get millions of people to start using PGP, even without they knowing anything about it. fake emails ... we should let the users to sort out(as they do it now).
    • True. If you want something that is easier to use, use SMIME. SMIME does not have the same verification of identity that PGP has. Notme 13:43, 12 June 2014 (EDT)


  • I received the following feedback from a friend: "Finally :-) [But,] I kind of wish it mentioned the fact that the email even encrypted still sends some information to the surveillance empire. Like the so called 'metadata' which often is enough to interpolate extra information, at the very least, social structure." --Jgay 10:41, 6 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Yes. When using PGP you are making more Metadata publicly available than when not using encryption. The most important information the "surveillance empire" wants to know is "who you are" and "who you know". For this reason, you should never answer the question about whether or not you know a key is associated with a person. Notme 19:50, 12 June 2014 (EDT)
  • I have translated the infographic into German ([1]). I have also seen it translated into Spanish ([2]). I am now translating the guide into German.

--Gpcf 05:27, 9 June 2014 (EDT)

    • The finished version of the German translation is available. --Gpcf 08:43, 13 June 2014 (EDT)
    • I need the svg file for this picture ([3]) to translate the text into German. Can you publish it?
    • I got some really good feedback from non-technical people. They said that it was very easy to understand and very preety. You have done a good job!

--Gpcf 07:00, 10 June 2014 (EDT)

    • Guide is limited in that it mentions only a few environments, clients, and encryption methods. For example: no mention there exists other clients for Windows, no mention of clients for Android, and no mention there exists other forms of encryption such as SMIME.
  • In the Step 3D, which was commented out, it should say that you need the password to use your private key, not your public key.

Gpcf 14:34, 12 June 2014 (EDT)

  • Step 6 Next Steps/Keysigning - What happens next after signing another person's public key? Do I have to upload the signed key to a key server? Will I send back the signed key to his/her owner? I understand that the concept of "Web of Trust" is elementary but following the manual I don't unterstand how to manage by personal web of trust. I really hope that I won't be the only one who doesn't understand this part. treje 11:21, 16 June 2014
    • The best idea is to send the key back to the owner in an encrypted email. That way, if the owner does not have access to the email address they won't be able to get the signed key. You manage the web of trust by setting ownertrust in a key. There are 3 levels: no trust, marginal trust, full trust and ultimate trust (This level should only be used on your own keys). A key needs to be signed by 3 marginally trusted keys or one fully or ultimately trusted key to be valid. Valid means that you can be sure that the key really belongs to its owner. You can set the level of trust by right-clicking on a key and selecting "Owner Trust" or something similar. --Gpcf 12:12, 16 June 2014 (EDT)
    • Thank you for the reply, Gpcf. As far as I understand it your way of processing signed keys adds a further tier of security to the process. Additionally I found a paragraph in the gpg manual which is also an answer to my issue ("Distributing Keys"). And I also realized that step 4.A on emailselfdefense answers my question, too. I obviously overlooked that step on my first attempt. Both sources suggest to upload the signed key to a public key server. The process of uploading signed keys raises other questions in my opinion. Newbie questions perhaps. Do the public key server sync their stored keys? Could be good to know to retrieve keys of new recipients. --treje 17:55, 17 June 2014 (CEST)
    • Yes, all keyservers except keyserver.pgp.com (which is rarely used) syncronize. It may take a few minutes until the changes have spread over all keyservers. --Gpcf 13:00, 17 June 2014 (EDT)
  • The guide (including 4 replies from Adele) and infographics are now translated into French, by Framasoft's and April's translation teams. The translation is not uploaded anywhere yet. We used the PO system to regenerate the page, including translated footer, etc. The POT (PO-template) could be used for any other translation. We hope ours can be hosted on emailselfdefense.fsf.org. Who is the contact person for that?
    • You should contact campaigns@fsf.org. I have done that for my German translation. --Gpcf 09:38, 17 June 2014 (EDT)
  • On Step 6 of the Windows version of the guide, under "Switch to GNU/Linux for maximum safety", it speaks to a Mac OS audience like it does for the Mac version of the guide. I checked to see if it was only about Mac for all versions of the guide, and the Linux version is not the same since it doesn't even have a section for "Switch to GNU/Linux for maximum safety". I think the guide should be changed to mention how Windows is a nonfree operating system instead of Mac OS when viewing the Windows version of the guide. Credentials: I use Windows because my college uses Windows software, but I've had years of user experience with various Linux distributions. This guide is my very first introduction to using GPG for email purposes, but I've used it to check the integrity of packaged software before. Flaurs 16:21, 18 June 2014 (EDT)
  • I think there should be a section explaining why the guide says signing the email is optional as it declares in the grey text section of 3.B ("Next to the key, you'll notice an icon of a pencil. Clicking this tells Enigmail to add a special, uniqe signature to your message, generated using your private key. This is a separate feature from encryption, and you don't have to use it for this guide." Unique is misspelled as uniqe in the guide. I'm not a good speller, so I'm not trying to offend anyone, but I noticed it underlined red when I copied it into here.), and why the guide says to not automatically sign outgoing mail in the email wizard from section 2.A ('On the second screen, titled "Signing," select "No, I want to create per-recipient rules for emails that need to be signed."'). I think it is because the guide says "add your key ID to your email signature" in section 5 under subsection "Make your public key part of your online identity". If the reason why opting out of automatically signing each email is because the users of the guide are supposed to add a key id to their messages so that the recipient of the user's emails can start the encryption process in the same step but in an easier/different way (opting for keyserver lookup from the key id rather than importing the signature manually from the body of the email), then it should be explained as such early on at step 3.B. Additionally, I think since the purpose of the guide is to adopt encrypting practices, then the "Encryption test" emails to adele-en@gnupp.de should be signed on the way to the email robot, so that the user of the guide can practice what it is like to carry an encrypted conversation to the user, not merely from the user. The grey text portion of Section 3.B makes it seem like it is unnecessary to sign an email to receive an encrypted email. Of course, this is because the guide implies that the users should include their key ids in their email signatures, and Adele is only programmed to use the encryption signatures, not the key ids. But, this should be explicated because a user might think s/he failed to learn how to use GPG from the guide by not clicking the pencil button when composing the message to Adele, and Adele replies that she could not encrypt the message to him/her because it cannot find a key signature, and key ids were not sent in the test and probably wouldn't even be usable by it. Credentials: I use Windows because my college uses Windows software, but I've had years of user experience with various Linux distributions. This guide is my very first introduction to using GPG for email purposes, but I've used it to check the integrity of packaged software before. Flaurs 16:21, 18 June 2014 (EDT)
  • In the new version on http://enc-dev0.fsf.org/en/, I see that "numbers" has been replaced by "numbers and letters" (section 2). That's a good thing, but in section 3, the fingerprint and ID are defined as "strings digits". Why not use "numbers and letters" too? In fact, it may be more appropriate to say "digits" instead of "numbers" (not being a mathematician, I don't really know).
  • In mac.html, Windows is given as an example of proprietary software. Why not say "Mac OS and Windows" in all 3 guides?
  • In mac.html and windows.html, the alt of the 3 screenshots of Enigmail installation are labeled "Step 1.B: Tools -> Add-ons", "Step 1.B: Search Add-ons" and "Step 1.B: Install Add-ons", but in fact they belong to Step 1.C.


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