HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ 1/HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ.iso/chibacity/macpgp23.cpt/MacPGP2.3.rsrc/STR#_208.txt

Text File | 1993-07-02 | 7.0 KB | 353 lines




xThe Options Menu



This menu allows the toggling of various PGP ΓÇ£switchesΓÇ¥ or ΓÇ£flagsΓÇ¥ or

ΓÇ£command-line optionsΓÇ¥.





ΓÇó Set Key Ring...



Virtually all PGP commands, in particular those dealing with the RSA

algorithm, use a keyring file.  The optional keyring file name defaults to

ΓÇ£pubring.pgpΓÇ¥ or ΓÇ£secring.pgpΓÇ¥, depending on whether the keyfile

contains a public or a secret key.  You may specify a different key ring

file name using this command.







ΓÇó Logfile



This is a MacPGP option that allows the PGP session text output during an

operation to be saved to a disk file.







ΓÇó Use file types



This option is specific to MacPGP.  It indicates that the program is to

respect Macintosh file type characteristics in the standard Open File

dialogs.  MacPGP has unique file types for radix-64 files, keyfiles (public

and private), and encrypted files.  MacPGP is compatible with PGP files

generated on other architectures under this setting.







ΓÇó Interactive key addition



Enabling this mode will mean that if you add a key file containing multiple

keys to your key ring, MacPGP will ask for confirmation (or veto) of each

key before adding it to your key ring.







ΓÇó PKCS compatible packets



This option specifies that PKCS compatible packets should be generated

for encryption.  PKCS stands for Public Key Cryptography Standards, a

convention issued by RSA Data Security Inc. in cooperation with Apple,

Microsoft, DEC, Lotus, Sun, and MIT.  The standard is compatible with

PEM and OSI implementations.







ΓÇó Verbose



Under this mode to display maximum information, usually to help diagnose

problems in PGP.  Not recommended for normal use.  (Under key

generation the mode reveals the internal mathematical parameters used in

the RSA process.)





ΓÇó ASCII output



This specifies that output files should be encoded in the ΓÇ£radix-64

format,ΓÇ¥ a scheme that allows arbitrary binary data (in this case, keys

and compressed/encrypted data) to be encoded in text messages.





Many electronic mail systems only allow messages made of ASCII text,

not the 8-bit raw binary data that ciphertext is made of.  To get around

this problem, PGP supports the ASCII radix-64 format for ciphertext

messages, similar to the Internet Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) format.

This special format represents binary data by using only printable ASCII

characters, so it is useful for transmitting binary encrypted data through

7-bit channels or for sending binary encrypted data as normal E-mail

text.  This format acts as a form of ΓÇ£transport armorΓÇ¥, protecting it

against corruption as it travels through intersystem gateways on

Internet.  It also appends a CRC to detect transmission errors.



Radix-64 format converts the plaintext by expanding groups of 3 binary

8-bit bytes into 4 printable ASCII characters, so the file grows by about

33%.  But this expansion isn't so bad when you consider that the file

probably was compressed more than that by PGP before it was encrypted.



The radix-64 format is generated when this option is set during an

encryption or key extraction operation.  Decrypting the radix-64

transport-armored message is no different than a normal decrypt.  If you

want to send a public key to someone else in radix-64 format, just enable

this option while extracting the key from your keyring.



Most Internet E-mail facilities prohibit sending messages that are more

than 50000 bytes long.  Longer messages must be broken into smaller

chunks that can be mailed separately.  If your encrypted message is very

large, and you requested radix-64 format, PGP automatically breaks it up

into chunks that are each small enough to send via E-mail.  The chunks are

put into files named with extensions ΓÇ£.as1ΓÇ¥, ΓÇ£.as2ΓÇ¥, ΓÇ£as3ΓÇ¥, etc.  The

recipient must concatenate these separate files back together in their

proper order into one big file before decrypting it.  While decrypting, PGP

ignores any extraneous text in mail headers that are not enclosed in the

radix-64 message blocks.



If you forgot to use the ASCII Output option when you made a ciphertext

file or extracted a key, you may still directly convert the binary file into

radix-64 format by simply using the ΓÇ£ASCIIfyΓÇ¥ command in the File

menu.  MacPGP converts it to a ΓÇ£.ascΓÇ¥ file.





ΓÇó Treat source as text



Use this option to make PGP assume the plaintext is text that should be

converted to canonical text before encryption.  This option is necessary

because of minor and major variations in text formats across machine

architectures.  When it is enabled, PGP takes care of the proper

translation.  This mode is automatically turned off if PGP detects that the

plaintext file contains what it thinks is non-text binary data.



Normal unencrypted ASCII text messages are often automatically

translated to some common ΓÇ£canonicalΓÇ¥ form when they are transmitted

from one machine to another.  Canonical text has a carriage return and a

linefeed at the end of each line of text.  PGP lets you specify that the

plaintext should be treated as ASCII text (not binary data) and should be

converted to canonical text form before it gets encrypted.  At the

receiving end, the decrypted plaintext is automatically converted back to

whatever text form is appropriate for the local environment.





ΓÇó Encrypt to Self



This option allows you to automatically include yourself as an additional

recipient of any RSA encrypted messages you create.  If you donΓÇÖt do this

then you wonΓÇÖt be able to decrypt RSA (public key) messages you create,

because this requires the recipientΓÇÖs secret key, which you donΓÇÖt have.







ΓÇó Quiet Mode



In quiet mode, MacPGP outputs minimal amounts of information during

operations.







ΓÇó Batch Mode



With the Batch flag enabled, MacPGP will not ask any ΓÇ£unneccessaryΓÇ¥

questions or prompt for alternate filenames.  This is useful for running

PGP non-interactively.







ΓÇó Overwrite files



In the regular PGP package this is called the ΓÇ£force flagΓÇ¥.  When the

option is on, MacPGP will NOT prompt you before overwriting files during

e.g. decryption.  Instead it will just remove (not wipe) the existing file

and replace it with the newly decrypted file of the same name.







ΓÇó Wipe warning



Turning this switch on causes MacPGP to warn and prompt anytime a file

is about to be ΓÇ£wipedΓÇ¥ (irreversably erased) under the ΓÇ£wipe fileΓÇ¥

checkbox option under Decryption.







ΓÇó Recycle passwords



Under this option MacPGP remembers passwords that were entered at any

point during its execution for the duration of the execution so the user

does not need to retype them.  Be careful with this option; if you leave the

computer without exiting the application someone could sign documents

with your signature or decrypt private messages to you.