Best Objectech Shareware Selections

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Best Objectech Shareware Selections / UNTITLED.iso / boss / util / menu / 006 / pgpshell.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1993-05-21 | 14.7 KB | 355 lines

-= PGPShell =- Official Menu-Driven Shell of the 1996 Olympics! Endorsed by the Saddam Hussein Downhill Ski Team, the National Security Agency, and the Captain Midnight "Secret Decoder Ring" Fan Club (c) copyright by James Still 1993 of the Hieroglyphic Voodoo Machine BBS in snowy Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved PGPShell v 2.1 is released as freeware on May 21, 1993 Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is (c) copyrighted 1990-1992 by Philip Zimmermann WHAT'S WITH VER 2.1? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A nifty little routine that created a first name list of all your public key UserID's turned out to be not so nifty for a dozen or so people that e-mailed me. Version 2.0 created its own output file by piping to a text file using PGP's -kv argument. However it did cause some headaches for the dozen or so people I mentioned, and they couldn't get PGPShell to run on their machines at all. So for now (and since this is freeware!) I pulled the routine out until I have time to implement a better list function with a future version. For 99% of you, this bug never manifested itself but now you know why the 2.1. Also thank you Professor Salmi of University of Vaasa for keeping me honest and pointing out a few bugs that kept version 2.0 from being completely "idiot-proof." PGPShell 2.1 will give you a warning message (instead of bombing) if you select something other than an executable text editor when creating the PGPSHELL.CFG file. Okay, on with the show... WARRANTY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nope! Use at your own risk. James Still (and his evil twin Johannes Kepler) disclaim all warranties, expressed or implied, including without limitation, the warranties of use and/or fitness of PGPShell for any purpose. James Still assumes no liabilities for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use or misuse of PGPShell. PGPShell is FREEWARE which means you may use it without charge for as long as you want to, even on Mars, and 53 miles west of Venus if you should so desire. However, James Still retains all rights to the copyright of PGPShell versions 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1. When they make a movie of it someday, I want to be there to say "No, no, the menu structure didn't look like that at all!" QUICK START -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Create a C:\PGPSHELL directory and copy PGPSHELL.EXE into that directory. Run PGPSHELL. Use the ESC, ENTER, arrow keys, and TAB key to manually navigate around PGPShell, or use your mouse if it is installed. INTRODUCTION -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PGPShell version 2.0 is a menu-driven front-end that makes Phil Zimmermann's excellent program Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) easier to manage and use. Use it instead of PGP to make your encryption life easier! Improvements over the first version are too numerous to go into fully as 2.0 is practically a complete rewrite, but the biggies are: GUI and mouse driver, full support of all PGP commands, expanded sub-menu for key management with logically arranged "drop-down" menus, plaintext file viewer, and a text editor interface. For the public key encryption novice, PGPShell should be a perfect introduction to the exciting and wacky world of (what Andy Hawks coined in a recent Future Culture FAQ) "Cypherpunk." (Kinda catchy ain't it? What'll they think of next...<g>) You should make sure that the executable file is a good one by looking at the date and time stamp. From the DOS prompt type "dir PGPSHELL.EXE" and you should see this: PGPSHELL EXE 120432 05-21-93 8:15p If it says anything else I didn't compile it! Granted some ex-KGB agent could set his computers date and time, and the file size, but hey who's that paranoid? Nevertheless if you don't trust it, call up the Hieroglyphic Voodoo Machine BBS at 1.303.443.2457 and download yourself a fresh, clean copy. On the Internet ftp from the soda.berkeley.edu site in directory \pub\cypherpunks\pgp. GETTING STARTED -------------------------------------------------------------------------- These title heads are starting to look like an old WordPerfect manual eh? PGPShell is DOS-only which means that I don't know how to port this to UNIX. UNIX-guru's can write their own scripts in PERL and abhor the heresy's of mouse drivers so I think its safe to assume that they won't be joining us anyway. Okay to get things set up, from the root directory (C:\) of DOS enter these commands: md pgpshell cd pgpshell Then copy the PGPSHELL.EXE file and any other related docs, into the PGPSHELL directory. Type PGPSHELL at the DOS prompt to execute the program. If you have NOT previously installed PGP on your system, PGPShell will bug you with some questions. If you have never set the environment variables for PGP in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, PGPShell will not know where PGP is and get real confused! PGPShell will ask you to point out your PGP directory so that it can run correctly. If you want, PGPShell will even add those environment variable lines to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file for you (first creating a backup of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and calling it AUTOEXEC.PGP). See the PGP documentation for more information about setting up the PGP environment variables. MAIN MENU -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the wonderful world of cryptography, text files or "messages" are of two types: plaintexts and ciphertexts. Plaintexts are unencrypted and, you guessed it, ciphertexts are encrypted. The main menu consists of these options in handling plain/ciphertexts: ■ Compose a Plaintext for Encryption ■ View a Plaintext on Screen ■ Encrypt a Previously Written Plaintext ■ Decrypt a Ciphertext ■ Archive a File ■ Key Ring Menu COMPOSE A PLAINTEXT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To write a message for encryption to someone, choose this option. Assuming you have not deleted or moved your text editor, PGPShell will bring up your text editor for use. By default it names your message "MESSAGE.TXT" but it is likely you will want to save it by another file name. VIEW A PLAINTEXT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PGPShell contains a built-in viewer to allow you to read your decrypted messages as long as they are less than 30K in size. The reason for this is that bugaboo called 'memory.' PGP is a memory hog (needs at least 300K of conventional mem) and PGPShell is another memory hog with its new GUI facelift. I'm not sure just how large a text file you can cram in there, but 30K seemed a nifty ceiling. Besides if you sent a love letter that was over 30K, you'd bore him or her to tears and they'd never speak to you again. ENCRYPT A PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN PLAINTEXT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are five options in an Encryption Dialogue box for you to choose from when encrypting a plaintext file. I'll list them and the PGP argument in parenthesis after: 1) Radix-64 ASCII e-mail format (-a) 2) Sign the plaintext with your secret key (-s) 3) Wipe or "shred" the original after encrytion (-w) 4) Convert plaintext to canonical text (-t) 5) Force recipient to view "on-screen" only (-m) Consult the PGP documentation for more details on what these parameters are used for when encrypting plaintexts from within the PGPShell. DECRYPT A CIPHERTEXT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As with the encryption options, there are five decryption options that you may toggle in a Decryption Options dialogue box. They are: 1) Check the signature authority of the ciphertext (-o) 2) Detach a signature certificate from a ciphertext (-b) 3) Leave the signature on the ciphertext intact (-d) 4) View the ciphertext "on-screen" only (-m) 5) Keep the original filename on the ciphertext (-p) Again, consult the PGP documentation for detailed help with these arguments. ARCHIVE A FILE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the -c argument in PGP. Sometimes you may just want to conventionally encrypt a file, or any number of files, for your own backup and security purposes. Keep in mind that PGP will ask you for a pass phrase to encrypt the file with. Its not a good idea to use your secret key pass phrase even though it may look like PGP is calling for that. KEY RING MENU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Choosing this menu option, will take you to the key ring management submenu. The key ring menu is broken down into three sections: 1) Access Key Ring Submenu (copy, view, add, remove keys) 2) Access Certification Submenu (certify, signatures, etc.) 3) Access Create/Revoke Submenu (edit UserID, revoke keys, etc.) These three options have hotkeys assigned to them which are 1, 2, and 3, and are shown on the menu at the left side of the menu. To leave the Key Ring Menu or any of its submenus, just slap the Escape key. Take a peek at the PGP documentation for more detailed information on what the various -k (key arguments) are. I could repeat them here, but if you have this shell, then you have PGP too! WINDOWS AND NETWORKS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can run PGPShell in Windows by setting up a PIF file with low graphics, run in the foreground, etc. Be careful about running PGP or PGPShell on a network however, since certain drivers can conflict with PGP. I've found that Pathway Access' ODI and PWTCP drivers may lock up your computer if PGP is executed. If you have problems with network drivers I suggest playing around with loading and unloading them high (@lh) and seeing what works best. Just remember that PGP is a 200K executable and PGPShell is about 120K, so if there's not enough memory you might have to use one of the many shareware programs that lets you choose a config upon startup. For 99% of the people out there this paragraph doesn't even apply so I wouldn't worry. Version 2.1 is a bug update that removed a routine that I thought would be a nice touch (it was a database sorted by first name of everyone on your public key ring), but proved to be incompatible with many machine's config settings and caused some troublesome run time errors. If a version 3.0 is in the works in the far flung future, I'll add an improved version of that feature back in, but for now, it has been removed from the code. I apologize to the people that I spoke to about their incompatibility problems with the 2.0 program, this update should take care of you. PGPSHELL CONFIG FILE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PGPShell creates its own configuration file "on the fly." That is to say that if it discovers that the PGPSHELL.CFG file is not in the current directory, it will ask you two questions to create it. The first question is simply, "What is your name?" Use the same UserID name that you did when you created your unique key pair in PGP. (If you haven't done that yet, then when you start PGPShell to create your keys, use the same name then.) If PGPShell knows your name, it can plug that in when necessary instead of having PGP ask you just before doing a step. The other question is "What text editor do you want to use?" A directory dialogue box will pop up and ask you to choose one. If you don't have a favorite text editor just go into your \DOS directory and choose EDIT.COM instead. If in the future you decide you want another text editor you can either manually change the PGPSHELL.CFG file or delete it and let PGPShell create another one at start up. CLOSING COMMENTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PGPShell should be easy to use. My hope is that more Windows-oriented people will use PGPShell and subsequently PGP, just because of its ease of use. Privacy shouldn't be the exception, it should be the norm; and it shouldn't be a hassle or only for the UNIX gurus! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me on the Internet at <still@kailua.colorado.edu> or at the Voodoo Machine if you're a BBSer. Also included in this file is KEPLER.ASC which is my public key. If you want to get down to the business of public key encryption, ADD my key to your public key ring and send me an encrypted e-mail message of what you do or don't like about PGPShell. It would be rewarding to hear from you about what improvements in the future you would like or even what the weather is like in your neck o' the woods. REGISTRATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nope! This is freeware. Do me a favor and give a copy of PGPShell to at least two of your co-workers, friends, enemies (why not?) and anyone else who's interested in privacy. CREDITS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Technojock Software, Inc. for their toolkit that I horked to throw this together. I freely admit I didn't register it, but if you want to acquire an excellent and comprehensive toolkit (I think its only $50) give 'em a call on Compu$erve at 74017,227, or write: P.O. Box 820927, Houston, TX 77282-0927. Thanks to everyone who wrote me about the first version and gave me valuable suggestions. Thanks to Philip Zimmermann who made PGP possible in the first place. Now solid public key encryption tools and secure communications are possible for us normal folks! Also thanks to Katherine, my wife who puts up with my strange ways, friends, and hours-long code sessions into the night. (I'll finish that BBS yet!) Then again she's kinda strange too... Visit Port Watson! Ask Kevin how at <portwatson@firefly.rain.com> and tell him Johannes sent ya! Bye! -------------- EOF ---------------------------------------------------------