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GnuPT - strong encryption on the go

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November 4, 2008 - 10:05am
#1
specialsymbol
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GnuPT - strong encryption on the go

I recommend adding GnuPT to your list of programs.

It's already portable, I just think it should be listed and available here. Data security will be an issue ever more important in the future and I found this program to be the perfect tool for that.

  • Program:

    • GnuPT

  • License:

    • GNU FDL

  • Description:

    • GnuPT is a bundle of the programs WinPT and GnuPG. Both programs are also freeware and open source. GnuPG is a command-line encryption program similar to PGP, WinPT is a frontend for this program. It will manage your keyrings and help you to easily encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify files or the clipboard. It is located in the system tray. GnuPT is the combination of both programs, already made portable. Available languages include english, spanish and german.

  • Website:

    • www.gnupt.de

  • Other:

    • Though in the license it says it may and even should be distributed for free, it may be wise to contact the author prior to publication. I made a suggestion not long ago and he implemented it to his website in less than 12 hours.
    Other infos:
    Source code for WinPT, signature
    Source code for GnuPG, signature
    PAD-file for GnuPT

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November 4, 2008 - 10:25am
ottosykora
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all in work

respectivly ready, as gnupg, we use it here with Thunderbird/Enigma for mail encryption, WinPT is under development probably still, but works OK, problems there are more less with WinPT itself rather then the portable version and there is a portable Java based PGP clone almost ready, but some minor bugs have to be cleared, authors work on it.

Try search function, you will find lot of threads concerning gpg etc.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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November 4, 2008 - 10:55am
(Reply to #2)
specialsymbol
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Well, I've not encountered

Well, I've not encountered any problems with WinPT whatsoever.
In fact it even runs stable on Vista x64 (at least in the most recent GnuPT bundle) - while it is still being further developed it's a final version, no beta or such.

Of course I don't want to stop any efforts on other programs. I just posted this here because it works, it's portable and it's already available.

I know there are many more encryption tools out there. However, TrueCrypt for example is perfect for whole hard drives offering plausible deniability, Toucan is perfectly suitable for encrypted backups, Enigmail is great for encrypting e-mails - yet I haven't found something that will simply encrypt or decrypt single files or text easily and quick. GnuPT seemed to be the answer, but it didn't run under Vista x64 until last version. So now it does, and it's portable Smile

I've been desperately looking for programs that run on Vista x64 (which is pretty difficult since not even Windows or the IE7 run stable on Vista x64) but it's really hard to find some.

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November 4, 2008 - 11:18am
(Reply to #3)
ottosykora
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all OK

for the winpt, there is a launcher available form this site somewhere fitting it into the portable apps suite seamlessly.
WinPT is fine, the current version has most of the small bugs which were in the previous version cleared. There sometimes small issues when using old RSA keys with idea.dll , sometimes the key ID was given out wrong after ver , but this concerns only some special cases.
I have reported some of the findings to the authors abt 6 months ago, so have not found major of those issues in the current version.
There can be still some small problems in the current window feature, since this one did sometimes add some extra CR/LF in special cases making the sig bad. I can not test it here, since on this PC PGP is fixed installed and thus winpt and pgp are 'biting' each other on that.

The winpt launcher is so far OK, so I think the author might publish it as final one day. At least the version I have here is still the development version.

BTW:
GnuPT, as I understand it will install its own gpg and winpt? Did I understand it correct?
When we have gpg and winpt-portbale installed on the stick, will it use the installation placed on the stick? Or?

Standard, the gpg executable is inside the Thunderbird folder, but we also have common files folder where we keep things like gpg or java etc. My particular installation is for some time switched to the non standard one, gpg sitting in the common files rather then in the Thunderbird folder. The winpt portable is using this installation of gpg149 including idea.
Is the GnuPT some aid to me or is it just kind of configurator aid? Sorry, but this point I did not quite understand so far.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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November 4, 2008 - 11:39am
(Reply to #4)
ottosykora
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have just tried

and see what it is supposed to do.
It tries to download and configure gpg and winpt, however just now winpt.de.chm seems to be missing on the server or so, since the downloader stops there.
Trying again, brings me again to the installer script only.

But OK, can see what it is supposed to do. Instead of getting gpg and winpt separately, it is using the script to place it in relevant subfolders. OK, this makes sense, since many people get confused about the whole gpg etc .

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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November 5, 2008 - 11:59am
(Reply to #5)
specialsymbol
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Like me.. I don't really know

Like me.. I don't really know how it works. I've always been confused about setting up GPG and then WinPT (mostly about setting up GPG) so I find this to be a fairly simple solution. I'm not a total newbie but I see that it's downloading the needed files (in this case GPG and WinPT) from a server and puts it into different folders:

C:.
|   german.lng
|   GnuPT-Portable.txt
|   gnupt.asc
|   History.txt
|   Lizenz.txt
|   Tray.exe
|   Tray.exe.sig
|   Tray.ini
|   tree.txt
|   
+---GnuPG
|   |   gpg.exe
|   |   gpg.exe.sig
|   |   iconv.dll
|   |   iconv.dll.sig
|   |   
|   \---gnupg.nls
|           de.mo
|           de.mo.sig
|           
+---Keys
|   |   gnupt.asc
|   |   gpg.conf
|   |   gpg.conf.bak
|   |   pubring-bak-1.gpg
|   |   pubring-bak-2.gpg
|   |   pubring.gpg
|   |   random_seed
|   |   secring-bak.gpg
|   |   secring.gpg
|   |   trustdb.gpg
|   |   
|   \---Montag
|           pubring.gpg
|           secring.gpg
|           trustdb.gpg
|           
\---WinPT
        libgpg-error-0.dll
        libgpg-error-0.dll.sig
        libgpgme-11.dll
        libgpgme-11.dll.sig
        PTD.dll
        PTD.dll.sig
        winpt.de.chm
        winpt.de.chm.sig
        winpt.de.mo
        winpt.de.mo.sig
        WinPT.exe
        WinPT.exe.sig

So yes, it seems to have it's own GPG and WinPT. On the other hand it says somewhere on the site that it'll download missing parts, however I don't know where it will look for GPG if it was installed. If GPG was installed portable (either as standalone or by another portable application) you shouldn't be able to find a trace in the regular system, or am I wrong?

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November 6, 2008 - 3:17am
(Reply to #6)
ottosykora
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portable gpg

will not have permanent files stored somewhere.

The gnupt seems to look for gpg via the usual places in the registry, so I think it will not discover the portable version by itself as it looks so far, which does not mean we could not point it to it somehow later.

I tried to run the gnupt, somehow I noticed it did make the tree as you shown here. However, since I have no gpg installed on the PC, just two portable versions, it was downloading all the files new. This is not a problem so far.
However, some file, I think it is the help file for winpt since it seems to be the .chm or so, could not be found on the server stated in the script and thus the 'installation' stucks there and is stopped after some timeout.
So so far I was not able to test what will result when all is done.
But I will keep an eye on it.

I will try to get the .chm file separately, so when it is in place , the script might carry on with its work.

Anyway, the idea of automatic installation of gpg and front end makes sense, since otherwise many people are kind of 'blocked' by the relativ complexity of it.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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November 6, 2008 - 11:17am
(Reply to #7)
ottosykora
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missing file

I was tsill unable to get the gnupt to work. Funny, it is just missing the winpt.de.chm , but it refuses to work without this. The associated winpt is alone not very useful, since to start this , it is not portable then and starts write this and that to hard drive.

Do you know where the .chm file should come from?

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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November 8, 2008 - 4:11pm
specialsymbol
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Missing file

Strange, I tried to install it again and it downloaded the winpt.de.chm without any issues. It's one of the last files to be downloaded, except the .sig for the .chm file and something else that was downloaded faster than I could read the balloon pop-up.

If it helps you I'll upload the .chm file and it's signature for you somewhere.

edit:
Seems like I still got the Version 1.1.1.8, which is working. I uploaded the files to:
http://www.filedropper.com/gnuptportablefull

md5sum: 017FB6B4C31FCB0E80F3B3A8ECD12F91 gnupt_portable full.7z

The Password for the .7z file is your last name, starting with a capital letter.

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November 8, 2008 - 6:49pm
(Reply to #9)
ottosykora
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OK thanks

with this I managed to make the gnupt somehow working.
I managed now make work both 18 and 19.
I manged it to work with all kind of keys, old RSA3 , RSA4 and DH / Elg etc.
Idea works as well
The paths are set so far correctly (relative) to the actual folders, so gpg bins and keys and other parts as idea.dll are found. Well the idea has to be defined as being in /idea.dll and then has to be copied to the root of the stick. But this is gpg story and not of the launcher problem.

However:
the launcher is in fact not very well done. It is not catching all attempts of the winpt and gpg to write to registry. In fact it avoids simply any entries to registry, this is OK so far, but when the prog is opened or even more at the end when it should be closed, is wants read lot of entries to registry which were not done previously. So I counted something like 5 error messages by windows (could not read something ... from registry...) before the prog can be closed down.
The functionality is however here otherwise.

But for an newbie, this would be very confusing.

I think nice work, certainly very fine for the desktop installation to enable even a newbie to gpg to make all running somehow.
The portable version needs some 'cleaning' up still, the authors should have a look at the work of some young portableapps authors here and see what can be improved.
Not much work left, but this way it is still not very practical to use it, unless there is already gpg installation running locally.

Also it might be fine to UPX the executables, this is done here with most software. Sticks are not infinitely in size and gpg.exe alone will shrink to less then half.
So it is an nice attempt to make it portable, it seems to not leave anything on the host, but it still needs improvement.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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