PGP Quickstart for Polarbar Mailer

Currently the PGP support in PBM is limited to PGP 2.6.x (RFC 1991) If you have a PGP keyring that was created by anything other than PGP 2.6.x you will have to download PGP 2.6.x and create a new one.

If you have a keyring that was generated by PGP 2.6.x you can skip this step Otherwise first download a copy of PGP 2.6.x. After installing, create a keyring with the command "pgp -kg". It will ask you to create a PGP ID, use your name followed by your email address in brackets: Joe Polar <jpolar@myisp.com>.

Now you have to tell PBM where to find your keyring. In PBM go to the Settings dialog and select the PGP page. Enter the paths to the keyrings, the public keyring is PUBRING.PGP, the secret keyring is SECRING.PGP. You must enter the full path to those files. After you have filled in the keyrings, use the Find ID button and select your ID from the list. If you would like your passphrase stored in the settings, enter it here and use the Test Passphrase button to make sure you typed it correctly. If you choose not to enter it here, you will be prompted for it when Polarbar attempts the first retrieval and if you are worried about leaving your passphrase in memory, you can clear it by selecting Tools->PGP->Clear PGP Passphrase

To encrypt an email, bring up the Compose dialog. Press the + button on the Encrypt using section and select the names from your public keyring. If you made a mistake, you can remove them by selecting them in the drop down box and pressing -. After you have typed the portion of your message that you would like be encrypt, press the Encrypt button.

To sign an email, bring up the Persona dialog and check the "PGP Sign Email" checkbox at the bottom. The PGP signing can take a few seconds so don't worry if you press send and the compose dialog doesn't disappear right away.

Once the passphrase has been entered, any email received will be automatically verified. If the message is PGP signed you will see the text of the message begin with -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----. If the user's public key is on your keyring and the message was verified, a green padlock will appear in the subject line. If it fails verification the padlock will have a red X through it. If the message was signed but the user is not on your keyring, no PGP icons will appear in the subject.

To decrypt an email, simply RMB on the message and select PGP->Decrypt PGP message. The existing text in the window will disappear and the decrypted text will be shown. If you change to another message and then change back, you will see the encrypted text and you will need to decrypt it again.

If someone has sent you their ascii keyblock, you can add them to your keyring by pressing RMB in the message window and selecting PGP->Add PGP keyblock to public keyring. PBM can also search the MIT keyserver if you select RMB->PGP->Get FROM addr public key from keyserver and add it After you add the public key for someone, you can manually verify their email by RMB->PGP->Verify PGP signature in message.

To see who is on your public keyring go to Tools->PGP->View Public PGP IDs

To distribute your public key to others you can either put a keyblock into your sig or go to the MIT keyserver and add it there. To put the keyblock in your sig you must go back to the PGP program again and type pgp -kxa yourID outfile In the example above the command would look like pgp -kxa jpolar@myisp.com keyblock.asc In PBM you can create a persona and cut and past the contents of the keyblock.asc file into your signature.