Chris Jones wrote: > I have noticed that in order to reply to their posts some users on this > list require that I provide a "PGP passphrase" .. whatever that may be. > > I would gladly comply .. but I have no idea what that "PGP passphrase" > is and how I can obtain it. > You are running a mail client that has OpenPGP support. You can find out more about OpenPGP at Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPGP. I strongly reccommend you familiarize yourself with this technology as it is commonly used verify that an email hasn't been tampered or modified in shipping, or to provide end-to-end encryption. To get started with GnuPG, the GNU OpenPGP implementation, check out > Someone just asked a question to the "community".. So, I try to help, > right? .. I try to give them some kind of answer, right? .. and now that > I have painstakingly put together something that may help them and I'm > about to post it.. 20 minutes of my time, could be .. and I try to > post.. Well guess what .. I'm bloody stuck .. because of course I have > no f***ing idea what their "PGP passphrase" is in the first place. > Nor are you supposed to. The way OpenPGP works is if you're trying to encrypt a message to someone else, it will ask you for the passphrase to your private key, and it will attempt to encrypt the data to your recipient's public key. Make sure you're mailer isn't trying to encrypt the message when you're intentionally trying to send a message to a public list. If you do, everybody will get a copy of the message, but only the people for whom you encrypted it will be able to decrypt and read the message. > Am I mistaken .. or are the "PGP passphrase" wise guys another ilk of > trolls & spammers that should right away be BANNED from this list and > every other list and restrained to "PGP passphrase land" for trying to > look "knowledgeable" and "important" and waste everybody's time in the > process .. or I am totally missing something and is there any good > reason they should have the right to demand that I provide a > "passphrase" in order to post to a list that as far as I understand is > open to the general public?? > > Could anyone explain why a subscriber to the list who as far as I know > has no higher privilege than myself should have the ability to ask me > for a "PGP passphrase" in the first place? > It's unwise to make assumptions this grossly out of line with reality, particularly if you haven't tried to look up the answer in Wikipedia or Google yet.
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