Author

Topic: What's your most trusted way of communicating online? (Read 646 times)

vip
Activity: 756
Merit: 503
Jabber with OTR or TorChat for instant messaging. PGP for email or PM.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1009
If you want a more long term solution, Freemail is private both in the sense that messages are encrypted, and it's also not possible for a third party to perform traffic analysis.
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 522
legendary
Activity: 1018
Merit: 1000
BBM chat its encrypted on its way out and on it way in.
Never heard issues with RIM and privacy.
hero member
Activity: 482
Merit: 502
I mostly use my own jabber server with ssl and feel secure enough for usual communication. If I ever need more privacy I would use OTR plugin for pidgin (or finch). If you choose to use it, make sure you are using the latest version of Pidgin and OTR. There was critical bug discovered this year in OTR plugin.
full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
Thanksa lot man. Much appreciated.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
okay, this is what i wrote up... you might need to adapt it a bit to your OS, etc.

Quote
---------- DOWNLOAD

1. Go to http://www.gpg4win.org/download.html

2. Download Gpg4win 2.1.0 (Size: 38 MByte, Released 2011-03-15)



---------- INSTALLING

3. Run the download and follow the instructions in the installer.

4. Open "Kleopatra" (Should be now in your start menu).

5. In Kleopatra, choose File->New Certificate

6. Choose "Create a OpenPGP key pair"

7. Type your name and email address (These can be absolutely anything random, but name needs to be two words and email needs to be a valid email address. eg. [email protected]).

8. Click Next

9. Click Create Key

10. Choose a password that you'll remember or keep somewhere safe, and enter it into the input box.

11. You should now have your first GPG key. This will have been saved somewhere on your computer under Users, but you can make a backup of the key to a USB or somewhere.

12. Click Finish.



----------- ENCRYPTING A MESSAGE

13. To encrypt a message, you'll need to choose who you're encrypting it for, and get a copy of their PUBLIC key. Eg. To send an encrypted message that only your brother can decrypt, you'll need to get a copy of your brother's PUBLIC key.

14. Once you have someone's public key, you can install it by clicking "Import Certificates" and browsing to the person's key file.

15. Open up Notepad and type the message that you want to encrypt.

16. Right click on your message in notepad and click "Select All" and then copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C).

17. In your system tray (near the clock on the task bar), there's an icon for Kleopatra. Right click on it and choose Clipboard->Encrypt.

18. Choose "Add recipient"

19. Select the key of the recipient (eg. your brother) It might be under the "Other Certificates" tab. Then click OK.

20. You will get a warning that says you have not selected your own certificate. This just means that you won't be able to decrypt your message (only the recipient will be able to).

21. Click Next, then OK. This should encrypt the contents of the windows clipboard.

22. Go back to notepad where you typed your message. If it's not still all selected, do Select All (Usually Ctrl-A). Then do a paste (Ctrl-V).

33. Now, email this encrypted text to your intended recipient and he will be able to decrypt it and read the original message.



----------- DECRYPTING A MESSAGE

34. For others to be able to send you encrypted messages, you will need to give them a copy of your PUBLIC key.

35. In Kleopatra, click on your certificate and choose Export Certificates. Save somewhere as whatever name you like, eg. mypublickey.asc

36. Send that mypublickey.asc to whoever you would like. It is safe to publish it anywhere at all, since the only thing people will be able to do with it is encrypt a message that only you can read.

37. Once someone sends you a message that has been encrypted with your key, select the encrypted message and copy it to the windows clipboard.

38. On the Kleopatra icon in the system tray, choose Clipboard->Decrypt/Verify

39. Go to notepad and click paste, or Ctrl-V, you should now be able to see the decrypted message.

^ the above may contain security holes, do your own research.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
I need to talk and communicate with a friend who's having issues and because of censorship I don't want his messages read, or become privvy to third parties.


I'm looking at PGP and what a good way to send him my certificate.


Could I use Pastebin? I can make an unlisted file, make it last 10 minutes and hopefully believe in the animal spirits that guide the internet that that text certificate will not stay on their servers.



it doesn't matter if your public key is public.

unless you also want to try to hide the fact that your friend is even using encryption, there's no problem sending him your public key over email or wherever.

i actually did up a guide for my brother recently.... i'll paste it here, it might help someone else.
full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
I need to talk and communicate with a friend who's having issues and because of censorship I don't want his messages read, or become privvy to third parties.


I'm looking at PGP and what a good way to send him my certificate.


Could I use Pastebin? I can make an unlisted file, make it last 10 minutes and hopefully believe in the animal spirits that guide the internet that that text certificate will not stay on their servers.

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