Asymmetric Encryption Question

[Gerowen]

So I'm just trying to educate myself and can't seem to find an answer online.  I have my wife's public PGP key imported onto my laptop, but not her private key.  If I encrypt a file with her public key, in theory, nobody should be able to decrypt it except the person with her private key, so her, however, I am able to decrypt the file even if I delete the original unencrypted copy of the file.  How is this working?  I'm using the built-in seahorse encryption tools in Debian Linux.

[+BudMan MVC]

Normally when you encrypt something  to someones public key, you also encrypt it with your own public key - so you can decrypt it, since you have your private key.

[Gerowen]

  On 11/07/2021 at 02:44, BudMan said:

Normally when you encrypt something  to someones public key, you also encrypt it with your own public key - so you can decrypt it, since you have your private key.

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I set up a clean VM and imported only one secret key and was able to decrypt a file that I encrypted with the other person's public key, so that makes sense.  It also explains why our PGP encrypted chat app lets me see all the messages I sent regardless of what device I sent it from.  Interesting how a file can basically be encrypted twice with two different keys and not affect the file size in any meaningful way though.

[+BudMan MVC]

Well the file is not really encrypted multiple times.. What happens is the session key used to actually encrypt the data which would be symmetric, and and included in the message is encrypted with the recipients public key.. So they can decrypt the symmetric key and use that to decrypt the actual data you wanted to encrypt.

 

This is included in the header of the file..

 

But yeah it is really interesting/cool!

[Gerowen]

  On 11/07/2021 at 12:13, BudMan said:

Well the file is not really encrypted multiple times.. What happens is the session key used to actually encrypt the data which would be symmetric, and and included in the message is encrypted with the recipients public key.. So they can decrypt the symmetric key and use that to decrypt the actual data you wanted to encrypt.

 

This is included in the header of the file..

 

But yeah it is really interesting/cool!

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This prompted me to go do some reading and I didn't know that's how PGP worked.  I was under the impression that when you encrypted a file or something, it was actually encrypting the entire message with the public keys, so encrypting to multiple recipients would mean encrypting the file multiple times with different keys.  Doing things the way you described makes a lot more sense because symmetric encryption is faster, and this provides a method for sharing the symmetric key in a secure manner, kinda like how https/tls works when browsing the web.  I'm curious what actual encryption algorithm and strength is used then because you could have a really strong PGP key, but if the randomized symmetric key algorithm is weak, then an attacker wouldn't have to break RSA or Elgamal or whatever, they would just have to break the weaker symmetric algorithm that was used to encrypt the actual message.

[Good Bot, Bad Bot]

Are you really using PGP to communicate with your wife? Why not just use Signal?

[Gerowen]

  On 12/07/2021 at 23:28, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

Are you really using PGP to communicate with your wife? Why not just use Signal?

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We do, it's our default fallback and where we have all our friends and family, but we also like experimenting with other options and found a very nice Android XMPP app called Conversations that supports either OMEMO or PGP encryption, so I decided to try out the PGP functionality. One of the down sides to Signal is that it's tied to a phone number, so my kids couldn't use it without me having to actually get them their own phone numbers. Having an independent registration method like Session Private Messenger or an XMPP server is kinda nice.

[Good Bot, Bad Bot]

  On 13/07/2021 at 05:32, Gerowen said:

We do, it's our default fallback and where we have all our friends and family, but we also like experimenting with other options and found a very nice Android XMPP app called Conversations that supports either OMEMO or PGP encryption, so I decided to try out the PGP functionality. One of the down sides to Signal is that it's tied to a phone number, so my kids couldn't use it without me having to actually get them their own phone numbers. Having an independent registration method like Session Private Messenger or an XMPP server is kinda nice.

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it seems like a lot of work to keep "Buy some milk on the way home" secret unless you and the wife work for an alphabet agency or something.  I use SMS with my wife LOL but can't use iMessage and won't use WhatsApp. I do use Signal for certain communications with some contacts. Phone numbers are free and easy to get.

[Gerowen]

  On 13/07/2021 at 12:08, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

it seems like a lot of work to keep "Buy some milk on the way home" secret unless you and the wife work for an alphabet agency or something.  I use SMS with my wife LOL but can't use iMessage and won't use WhatsApp. I do use Signal for certain communications with some contacts. Phone numbers are free and easy to get.

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I'm just a firm believer in encryption/security by default. Too many companies and agencies see it as their right to collect and monetize as much as possible, so we both deleted our Facebook accounts and told people if they want to get in touch with us to use Signal. There's nothing we talk about that's that interesting, but for us it's a matter of principal. If I call her while she's away on the weekend visiting her family and we decide to talk politics, I don't want somebody keeping recordings of our conversations and trying to either monetize it or use it against us at some point in the future. In a world where people like the NSA have stated their goal is to store all communications indefinitely and people are more politically divided than ever, it's more important than perhaps it has ever been to establish a secure enclave for your family to communicate without snooping and manipulation by third parties, no matter how innocent you might think your conversations are.

[+Warwagon MVC]

  On 13/07/2021 at 13:21, Gerowen said:

I'm just a firm believer in encryption/security by default. Too many companies and agencies see it as their right to collect and monetize as much as possible, so we both deleted our Facebook accounts and told people if they want to get in touch with us to use Signal. There's nothing we talk about that's that interesting, but for us it's a matter of principal. If I call her while she's away on the weekend visiting her family and we decide to talk politics, I don't want somebody keeping recordings of our conversations and trying to either monetize it or use it against us at some point in the future. In a world where people like the NSA have stated their goal is to store all communications indefinitely and people are more politically divided than ever, it's more important than perhaps it has ever been to establish a secure enclave for your family to communicate without snooping and manipulation by third parties, no matter how innocent you might think your conversations are.

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I agree. Though I didn't get anybody on signal, but I did get my mom, dad, friend, sister and neice and nephew over to telegram from Facebook messenger.

 

It started when I drew my parents a picture of this and sent it to them on facebook messenger. 

 

 

Then about an hour later I was seeing ads for this on Facebook

 

[Good Bot, Bad Bot]

  On 13/07/2021 at 13:21, Gerowen said:

I'm just a firm believer in encryption/security by default. Too many companies and agencies see it as their right to collect and monetize as much as possible, so we both deleted our Facebook accounts and told people if they want to get in touch with us to use Signal. There's nothing we talk about that's that interesting, but for us it's a matter of principal. If I call her while she's away on the weekend visiting her family and we decide to talk politics, I don't want somebody keeping recordings of our conversations and trying to either monetize it or use it against us at some point in the future. In a world where people like the NSA have stated their goal is to store all communications indefinitely and people are more politically divided than ever, it's more important than perhaps it has ever been to establish a secure enclave for your family to communicate without snooping and manipulation by third parties, no matter how innocent you might think your conversations are.

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I agree in a perfect world all communication would be E2EE and I could chat with anyone will any client but that is not possible. Principle is great and all but I need to communicate with others. Telling everyone it's Signal or nothing is not a real solution. Yes, no Facebook and more sensitive communication is via E2EE but I do compromise on regular everyday communication. The NSA can store those messages forever if they like. LOL What's next? We have cameras everyone so will we need to whisper to people we are talking to in public while covering our mouths as to not have our lip movements recorded?

[Gerowen]

  On 13/07/2021 at 14:38, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

I agree in a perfect world all communication would be E2EE and I could chat with anyone will any client but that is not possible. Principle is great and all but I need to communicate with others. Telling everyone it's Signal or nothing is not a real solution. Yes, no Facebook and more sensitive communication is via E2EE but I do compromise on regular everyday communication. The NSA can store those messages forever if they like. LOL What's next? We have cameras everyone so will we need to whisper to people we are talking to in public while covering our mouths as to not have our lip movements recorded?

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I made a Facebook post 30 days before deleting my account explaining my decision and gave people ways to contact me, then posted again about 2 weeks out. I figured anybody who values talking to me will respect my choices and if they don't, they obviously didn't value me enough to be slightly inconvenienced. I've even got the people at work to start using Signal to talk to me. It took about 6 months of them trying and failing to get me back on Facebook before they finally caved because they couldn't send large files or images over SMS. I don't personally think it should be so taboo to want privacy in your day to day personal communications. I do compromise and agree to use SMS occasionally for people that I don't talk to often, but if I talk to somebody on a regular basis and especially if they're a family member that wants pictures of my kids or something, I insist that they use Signal or some other E2EE means of communication and right now Signal is the easiest to get people on board with. I can't protect everything, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't make a reasonable effort to do what I can to protect myself and my family from unlawful spying that we know is taking place at the hands of corrupt, power hungry government officials, identity thieves, etc.

[+BudMan MVC]

I haven't been big into pgp for years and years..  But my understanding the symmetrical key normally stronger.  Keep in mind the weakest link in the chain is what to worry about.. Be it the public asymmetrical or the session key (symmetrical).. But even if they break the session key used.  That would be different for every single message, so at best if they did break the session they would just have access to that message.  Since every time you encrypt something the session key would be different.

 

And your correct is somewhat like https/tls - where a secure method is used to exchange the key to be used for that session. 

[Gerowen]

  On 13/07/2021 at 13:29, warwagon said:

I agree. Though I didn't get anybody on signal, but I did get my mom, dad, friend, sister and neice and nephew over to telegram from Facebook messenger.

 

It started when I drew my parents a picture of this and sent it to them on facebook messenger. 

 

snipped

 

Then about an hour later I was seeing ads for this on Facebook

 

snipped

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That's creepy as hell.  My wife and I deleted our Facebook accounts a few years ago.  It was a lot of things really; being sold as a product to advertising companies, intentionally spying on users, storing passwords in plain text, allowing third parties access to user information without their informed consent.  My wife actually deleted hers first.  I gave everybody a 30 day heads up, made a couple of posts explaining our decision, made a backup of my profile data and then deleted my account.  It's still kinda weird because I'll occasionally talk to somebody who wants to message me on Facebook or something and I have to explain to them that I don't have an account and refuse to make a new one even just for messenger when there are better options available.  I finally got all the guys at work on Signal because I just straight up refused to install Facebook Messenger.  My brother and I experimented with "Session" for a while because it's not tied to your phone number, so it's a bit more portable, but I haven't really made any real attempts to move people anywhere else except for our inter-family conversations my wife and I bounce between Signal and "Conversations.im" with our personal PGP keys.  We have actually noticed that even though it's based around the same protocols, the audio calls on conversations are more reliable than on Signal.  On Signal sometimes if she's out of the service area Signal will still report that a phone is ringing, when in fact it's not.  With conversations.im it "discovers devices" first and if it can't ping her phone, it tells me as much instead of letting me sit there listening to a ring tone as if her phone is ringing when it's not.