Cunningham Law

Can someone please explain why PGP is needs all of these? All explanations of public key encryption don’t include any of these.

And I probably don’t completely understand what PGP is, so please give me a good article or video on it.

  • RatoGBM@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    So the email and name will be plaintext in the public key/signatures?

    memorable link to the public key’s owner.

    Ok, just strange how the key generator insists on specifying them. Encryption usually doesn’t like extra metadata.

    • Thann@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Its about trusting the data you’re decrypting actually came from who you think it came from.

      So the data is signed with your public key, and your public key is published so people can verify the other stuff you publish. Your email is there just so people can communicate back to you…

      You can of course put junk info in the fields if you want, but the purpose of the program is enabling trustworthy lines of communication.

      • RatoGBM@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        So the email and username have no cryptographic purpose, they are just there for convenience.

        Thanks I guess…