Category : Utilities for DOS and Windows Machines
Archive   : PGPUTILS.ZIP
Filename : PGPEMACS.DOC

Subject: Using PGP with Emacs Rmail
Date: 9 Oct 1992 14:39:10 GMT
From: [email protected] (Robert Anderson)
Lines: 319


PGP with GNU Emacs Rmail Revision 1
------------------------ October 2, 1992

Here are some notes on using PGP 2.0 on a Unix platform, using
the Gnu Emacs "rmail" package to send and receive mail.

First, it is inherently insecure to use PGP, or any encryption
program, on a multi-user system. There are just too many ways
for the system operators, or even ordinary users, to spy on what
you are doing. However, many people are only able to send and
receive mail on such machines, and it still may be useful for
them to be able to use PGP. The security is nowhere near as
great as it would be on a laptop PC which you keep chained to
your wrist at all times, but it should be good enough for casual
privacy.


FILTERING


PGP 2.0 has a "filter" mode invoked with the "-f" switch. Many
Unix mail reading tools have the ability to pass messages, or
portions of messages, through filter programs, returning the
result to the editing buffer. This general approach is what I
will discuss, as it applies specifically to Gnu Emacs. (I use
Gnu Emacs version 18.55.3, of Friday, July 26, 1991. But most of
the features discussed here should apply to almost any current
Gnu Emacs.)

The Emacs command to pass a portion of a buffer through a filter
is "shell-command-on-region". On my machine, it is mapped to the
key M-|, which I activate by typing the escape key and then the
vertical bar key. By giving a prefix argument to this function,
which I do by typing control-U just before the M-|, the function
replaces the text in the buffer with the output of the filter.


ENCRYPTION


To encrypt a message, then, I first compose the message using the
"mail" function of Emacs. Then I set the Emacs "region" to
contain the message text (but not the headers at the top of the
message). This I do by the function "mark-whole-buffer", which
is mapped to control-X H on my system, then advancing the "point"
(cursor) down from the top of the page using control-N until I am
at the first line of the message I am sending. (This is the line
just beyond the separator line which Emacs creates called "--text
follows this line--".) This is how a sample message buffer will
look at this point:

To: [email protected]
Subject: Test of PGP with Emacs
--text follows this line--
Dear XYZ:
I hope you enjoy this encrypted PGP message.
Love, ABC.

(The cursor is on the "D" of "Dear", and the "mark", which you
can't see, is at the end of the buffer.)

With the region properly set to enclose the message text, I now
want to filter the message through PGP. The general idea is to
use control-U followed by M-|, but a problem arises if I do this.

PGP, when run in filter mode, produces encrypted or decrypted
output based on its input. But in addition, it also produces a
few informational messages, such as the version information that
is printed for every run. PGP goes to some trouble to separate
these two kinds of output, putting the encrypted output to
"standard out", and the informational messages to "standard
error". Unfortunately, Emacs undoes PGP's efforts, combining
standard out and standard error into one stream. The result is
that using this Emacs filter function brings back not just the
encrypted message, but also the PGP informational messages. This
is what the output looks like:

To: [email protected]
Subject: Test of PGP with Emacs
--text follows this line--
Pretty Good Privacy 2.0 - Public-key encryption for the masses.
(c) 1990-1992 Philip Zimmermann, Phil's Pretty Good Software. 2 Sep 92
Date: 1992/10/02 22:10 GMT


Recipient's public key will be used to encrypt.
Key for user ID: XYZ
382-bit key, Key ID 5E7ADD, created 1992/09/27
.-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: 2.0

hDwC2RA+W2deet0BAX4iI1FcS9qz57OA2pd3T/tr7wcwzW5mHocwvlND+Un0aYac
Kq4qwjxpxr5rY/ABEAymAAAAWnZfbPeqdeXZGkFqCUny9tnVuew9JfSkzaGVIbpS
aTOxzNcWP7hgHVCW4FUyFgCUmGGBgIbbSUwisrQsMo0lUH4UxUjjKLYav+RGs8Z6
9SG3RzAnnpEdAhSSbQ==
=zAPP
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

This can be cleaned up manually by deleting all the characters
from the "Pretty Good Privacy" header down to the "." just before
"-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----". But this is tedious. To avoid
this problem, I created a very simple shell script which I use to
run PGP. It looks like this:

:
exec pgp $* 2>/dev/null

I call this script "pgpq". The first line is just a colon, and
the second line just remaps standard error to /dev/null, causing
it to disappear, and passes all arguments along to PGP. The
result is that PGP's informational messages do not appear back in
the Emacs buffer when I run it as "pgpq".

With this script, I can encrypt messages to be sent to other
people within Emacs. First I set the region with control-X H
followed by a few control-N's. Then I type control-U M-|. Emacs
prompts with the query "Shell command on region:". For
encryption of a message to user XYZ, I type:

pgpq -fea XYZ

The command is given as "pgpq" to get a cleaner output as
described above. The option letter "f" means to use filter mode;
"e" means to encrypt, and "a" means to get ASCII output. The
user name comes next. (For information on how to also sign a
message, see below.) The output of this command, for the example
above, looks like:

To: [email protected]
Subject: Test of PGP with Emacs
--text follows this line--
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: 2.0

hDwC2RA+W2deet0BAX4omw4gByFkFaHFko7qPBVq1Yh7EpgHnbZ5EebqFiQjr61I
Bz6t1tQZSloNJ4KhTYOmAAAAWi2Ja/oM0LvEi9fumi4IdKDQJ44ihatrM0AEYUi5
CVJjj5YCuQUl5XT/s5cG+Gu6R5fTPtmQ94iBmIMUjOw+yEcCkIa5B87PmJJDusMC
f1K8VWsc2A2oAJIWqg==
=uvLF
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Assuming user XYZ is on my key ring, the text of the message in
my buffer has been replaced by the encrypted form of the text. I
can then send the message on its way as usual.


DECRYPTION


I decrypt my incoming mail "in place", substituting the decrypted
text in place of the encrypted message. To do this using the
Emacs rmail package, the incoming mail message must be made
writable, using the "rmail-edit-current-message" function, mapped
to the letter "w" on my system. Then the steps below can be used
to decrypt the message. Afterwards, the "rmail-cease-edit"
function, mapped to "control-C control-C" on my system, is used
to "write back" the decrypted message. (If you like, after
reading the decrypted message but before writing it back you can
use "rmail-abort-edit", "control-C control-]" on my system, to
discard your changes and leave the encrypted message in place.)

Decrypting an incoming message can be done in a similar manner to
encryption. First I set the Emacs "region" to enclose the PGP
portion of the message. Then it is piped through the "pgpq"
filter to get the decrypted result.

However, the new element in the case of decryption is the need to
enter a pass phrase to activate your secret key. I solve this by
using the "PGPPASS" environment variable. If PGP is trying to
read your secret key and this environment variable exists, it
will try to use the value of this variable as your pass phrase.

So, to do decryption, it is necessary to set this environment
variable before running the filter. This could be done by
setting the variable before Emacs is started, so it will inherit
the value from the shell. However, I use the Emacs variable
"process-environment", which contains the environment variables
and their values which are passed to sub-shells and filter
processes. I wrote a few small Emacs functions to make it easier
to set and clear PGPPASS from the "process-environment" variable.
They are:


; PGP support
; Strip from list-of-strings l, any string which matches str
(defun stripstrlist (l str)
(cond (l (cond ((string-match str (car l))
(stripstrlist (cdr l) str))
(t (cons (car l) (stripstrlist (cdr l) str)))))))

; Set PGPPASS environment variable from argument
(defun pgp-passphrase (arg)
(interactive "sPGP pass phrase: ")
(setq process-environment
(cons (concat "PGPPASS=" arg)
(stripstrlist process-environment "^PGPPASS="))))

; Clear PGPPASS environment variable
(defun clear-pgp-passphrase ()
(interactive)
(setq process-environment (stripstrlist process-environment "^PGPPASS=")))


I put this code in my Emacs startup file, ".emacs". To use it, I
do "M-X pgp-passphrase" to set the pass phrase. It prompts me,
and I enter the pass phrase I use. Generally, I set it once and
leave it set for the duration of an Emacs session, but I also can
use "M-X clear-pgp-passphrase" to clear the pass phrase from the
process-environment variable.

Having set the pass phrase, decryption of incoming messages is
straightforward. I set the region, do control-U M-X, and when
Emacs prompts with "Shell command on region:" I reply:

pgpq -f

This causes the message to be decrypted, and the output to be put
back in the buffer, overwriting the encrypted data. Here is the
buffer before decryption:

To: [email protected]
Subject: Test of PGP with Emacs
--text follows this line--
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: 2.0

hDwC2RA+W2deet0BAX4omw4gByFkFaHFko7qPBVq1Yh7EpgHnbZ5EebqFiQjr61I
Bz6t1tQZSloNJ4KhTYOmAAAAWi2Ja/oM0LvEi9fumi4IdKDQJ44ihatrM0AEYUi5
CVJjj5YCuQUl5XT/s5cG+Gu6R5fTPtmQ94iBmIMUjOw+yEcCkIa5B87PmJJDusMC
f1K8VWsc2A2oAJIWqg==
=uvLF
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

And here it is after setting the PGP pass phrase, putting the
region around the "PGP MESSAGE" part, and running "pgpq -f":

To: [email protected]
Subject: Test of PGP with Emacs
--text follows this line--
Dear XYZ:
I hope you enjoy this encrypted PGP message.
Love, ABC.


SIGNING AND ENCRYPTING


The technique of setting the PGPPASS environment variable also
allows you to sign your outgoing messages along with encrypting
them. Use the "M-X pgp-passphrase" command to set your PGP pass
phrase, then encrypt the outgoing message with the command:

pgpq -safe XYZ

This tells PGP to sign, ascii-encode, use filter mode, and
encrypt the output for user XYZ.


WHEN THINGS GO WRONG


Once in a while, you will pass a message through PGP for
encryption or decryption, and instead of getting replacement
text, your message simply vanishes. Don't panic. The Emacs
"undo" function, mapped to control-X U on my system, can be used
to recover your message.

Probably what happened was that PGP had some problem in either
encrypting or decrypting the message. Maybe you misspelled the
User ID so that it wasn't found on the keyring. Or maybe an
incoming message was mistakenly encrypted in someone else's key,
or was in a mode which PGP can't handle when used as a filter
(see below).

The best way to diagnose the problem is to first bring the
message back with "undo" as just described, then to re-run the
filter command, but to use "pgp" rather than "pgpq". This will
cause the PGP informational messages to be put into your buffer.
Usually these will make clear what the problem is. Give another
"undo" to get back to the original message after reading this
output.


PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS


There are some problems associated with using PGP in this mode.
Probably the biggest is that in decrypting, the informational
messages are thrown away. This means that you lose information
about any incoming signed messages as far as whether the
signatures are valid or not. In fact, you won't even know that
the messages are signed.

The pgpq script could be enhanced to pipe standard error to some
filter program that could look at the informational output from
PGP and print a warning message (which would appear back in the
buffer along with the decrypted message) if, say, an invalid
signature was found. More work is needed in this area.

Another problem arises if PGP is used with conventional
encryption (using the -c flag). Conventional encryption prompts
for a pass phrase, but it does not check the PGPPASS environment
variable, or any other such variable. At present, conventional
encryption and decryption cannot be done in filter mode under
Emacs.

Any other features of PGP which would require interaction with
the user, such as decrypting a key and trying to add it to the
key ring, will also not work in this filter mode. The test cases
which I have tried work about as well as they can (e.g. when
decrypting a key in filter mode, PGP shows the contents of the
key but doesn't ask if it should be added to your key ring), but
for some of these functions you will have to fire up PGP outside
of Emacs.
--
------------
Bob Anderson
[email protected]