____________________________________________________________
GUIDE TO (mostly) HARMLESS HACKING
Vol. 3 No. 8, Part 2
The Magical Mystical Crypto-Primer
____________________________________________________________
by Tim "No Sinister Nickname" Skorick <TIM_SKORICK@non-hp-usa-om7.om.hp.com>
V. WHAT'S THE EASIEST WAY TO GET INTO ALL THIS? (or "Phil
Gets Paid")
A. PGP and where to get it
Awright, some of you cipherpunks knew this was coming.
By far the easiest
way to play around with cryptography is by getting your own free
copy of
PGP. PGP stands for "Pretty Good Privacy" and
was created a while back by a real fun math teacher named Phil
Zimmerman. It was only command-line-based, meaning you
had to do those annoying dos-like commands and switches and all
that and there's wasn't any windows-type point and click.
They (him and his friends) finally came up with a windows version
but then promptly sold the whole thing to a company called Network
Associates.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Go Get It! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Go to http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pgp-form.html This is
the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology website where you can still get PGP version
5.0 for
Windows. Now you could get the *new* PGP version 5.5 from
http://www.nai.com/products/security/pgpfreeware.asp but
that version will
only let you send and get messages encrypted with a Diffie-Hellman
key, and
not an RSA key. If you want to play with both, you have
to get the older
freeware.
Now either way, you're going to have to fill out a questionnaire
at least
promising that you're located in the USA and that you aren't
going to email
a copy of the software to "Bob the UnaHacker" in some
terrorist country.
I'm going to explain that in a little bit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, let me assume for the sake of easiness that you're going
to be running
PGP on some flavor of windows or possibly on a mac. Doesn't
matter which, it'll work the same on most of them.
1. Install it on your computer.
2. When it asks you which key type you want to generate, start
with
Diffie-Hellman just for the heck of it.
3. When it asks you for the size of key you want, just pick the
biggest
(heck, ya might as well).
4. You then get to pound random data out of your keyboard and
then watch
this fun little animation thingy.
5. So it finishes. The first thing you'll notice is that
they automatically
give you the keys of just about everybody who has ever worked
at or near
PGP. No biggie. You're good to go with the cryptofun.
A. Playing with PGP
First things first: your clipboard is your friend. Oh
yes, make friends
with your clipboard. Verrrrrry important. Take him
out to dinner, date his
sister, tell him he's cool. You'll be using him quite a
bit.
What makes PGP so user-friendly isn't only that it works with
all these
different operating systems ... it also uses only the most idiotically
simple parts of all these operating systems. You know what
the "copy" and
"paste" functions are on most computers, right?
To "copy" you hit Ctrl-C
and it writes stuff that you selected onto your clipboard, and
"paste" is
just Ctrl-V and it copies the stuff back onto your document wherever
you
want. Your clipboard is just the way-station, so where
better to use
encryption and decryption functions?
So remember:
1. To mess with the data, get it onto your clipboard.
2. To look at what you did to it, move it from your clipboard
onto a
document somewhere.
If you ever want to see what's on your clipboard at the moment,
go to the
PGP menu and select the thing that says "Launch Associated
Viewer."
The encryption fun goes like this:
1. Type some goofy simple little letter to yourself:
Dear Tim, quit doing that with your eyes or they'll freeze
that way.
2. Highlight all the text with your mouse.
3. Hit Ctrl-C. (it just copied the letter onto your clipboard)
4. Select from your PGP menu "Encrypt clipboard."
5. When it shows you all your public keys of people to write
to, choose your
own.
6. Drag and drop your name onto the "recipient" list.
7. Hit "ok." (it just encrypted everything on your
clipboard but left the
ciphertext there)
8. Go back to your document.
9. Click somewhere down below the plaintext you already typed.
10. Hit Ctrl-V to paste.
SPLAT!
11. Look at that mess!
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0
MessageID: B7gCHs7p6DU/TxZ7XFDbRklmHhdaWbBU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jkQ9jTmulHml317IH9HLdilri8cDosDX6n02QMD6lw/uiWs+ohpgLXuMCqbPLR1L
9y5Kbj2gTdlNUs/3b5RUXRDNjtjqVFpgscgQWNUseZ10P214L6I+lqAIh3qb5gdC
FrKb82fvJdcFwQZtam9JHooyiG11OSRrahdMf2u8C0YWrfCKIDhLEwEaY3lHtk9P
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z3Q6dyQ2gBbnjKiQm/VfDpPyKdvkWktl2iR2kyVyDwbP0u8NBQTsbkQ2r9yMPM/3
PHQoT8ME5q3FLOgSirV1YnNQCkTCfOHGb37ZtZlVQYN00gjJVCnJWr8bh9jD19yt
YOvixVgaym2dwCk6e+GBxKtKJ5KgpULANG/tJbY8MZjpw7IyDK6lgo1wmnn4NSjG
JIGLXn8rk44KbT2Qo3SzZftRf8Y+1i49QQ5eEdrFmxz1vg==
=md+y
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
WOW! That digital oatmeal looks cooler every time I
make it. Heh heh heh.
More on crypto--->>
