Using GPG For Signing Messages on a Mac
Posted in Technicalon May 11, 2005
GPG is a way to digitally sign email messages so that other people can know that they came from you. It can also be used to encrypt messages. Getting GPG to work is easy if you know the right way to do it, or difficult if you don’t. Here are some steps for the Mac user to get started with GPG:
http://macgpg.sourceforge.net is the best place to start off. If you want to understand in great depth about all the stuff, you should read the FAQ document (RTF).
First download and run the GNU Privacy Guard installer. This will install all the GPG tools onto your system. However, unless you like using the command line, you probably want to install a couple of graphical programs. I suggest GPG Keychain Access which will help you create and manage keys. I also suggest GPGPreferences which will help you configure the GPG tools, although you probably won’t need to do much with it.
You will probably want to create yourself a key which you will use to sign your emails. You can do this in the GPG Keychain Access program.
Next, you will want to make sure your email program is configured to use your GPG key. If you are using Mozilla Thunderbird, then you can install the GPG plugin called Enigmail. If you are using Apple’s Mail program, you should download, install, and use a plugin available here.
Follow any of these instructions at your own risk. I am not responsible if you or these programs screw up your computer.
