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You can read encrypted or signed PGP or GPG messages with MH-E1. This section assumes that you already have a good understanding of GPG and have set up your keys appropriately.
If someone sends you a signed message, here is what you'll see:
[[PGP Signed Part:Bill Wohler <wohler@stop.mail-abuse.org>]]
This is a signed message.
[[End of PGP Signed Part]]
If the key for the given signature is not in your keychain, you'll be given the opportunity to fetch the key from a key server and verify the key. If the message is really large, the verification process can take a long time. You can press C-g at any time to cancel2.
If the signature doesn't check out, you might see something like this:
[[PGP Signed Part:Failed]]
This is a signed message.
This is garbage added after the signature was made.
[[End of PGP Signed Part]]
If someone sends you an encrypted message, MH-E will ask for your passphrase to decrypt the message. You should see something like this:
[[PGP Encrypted Part:OK]]
[[PGP Signed Part:Bill Wohler <wohler@stop.mail-abuse.org>]]
This is the secret message.
[[End of PGP Signed Part]]
[[End of PGP Encrypted Part]]
If there is a problem decrypting the message, the button will say:
[[PGP Encrypted Part:Failed]]
You can read the contents of this button using the methods described in Viewing Attachments. If the message were corrupted, you'd see this:
[[PGP Encrypted Part:Failed]
Invalid base64 data]
If your passphrase were incorrect, you'd see something like this:
[GNUPG:] ENC_TO CD9C88BB610BD9AD 1 0
[GNUPG:] USERID_HINT CD9C88BB610BD9AD Bill Wohler <wohler@stop.mail-abuse.org>
[GNUPG:] NEED_PASSPHRASE CD9C88BB610BD9AD CD9C88BB610BD9AD 1 0
[GNUPG:] BAD_PASSPHRASE CD9C88BB610BD9AD
gpg: encrypted with 1024-bit RSA key, ID 610BD9AD, created 1997-09-09
"Bill Wohler <wohler@stop.mail-abuse.org>"
gpg: public key decryption failed: bad passphrase
[GNUPG:] BEGIN_DECRYPTION
[GNUPG:] DECRYPTION_FAILED
gpg: decryption failed: secret key not available
[GNUPG:] END_DECRYPTION
gpg exited abnormally: '2'
The appearance of the buttons is controlled by the faces
mh-show-pgg-good, mh-show-pgg-bad, and
mh-show-pgg-unknown depending on the validity of the signature.
The latter is used whether the signature is unknown or untrusted.
The `pgg' customization group may have some settings which may interest you. See The PGG Manual.
[1] This feature depends on post-5.10 versions of Gnus. MIME Security with OpenPGP is documented in RFC 3156. However, MH-E can also decrypt old-style PGP messages that are not in MIME format.
[2] Unfortunately in the current version, the validation process doesn't display a message so it appears that MH-E has hung. We hope that this will be fixed in the future.