/[winpt]/trunk/doc/winpt.texi

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-revision 255 by twoaday,
Tue Aug  1 16:36:59 2006 UTC
+revision 256 by twoaday,
Sat Aug  5 10:31:06 2006 UTC
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 This file is free under the terms of the
  Copyright (C) 2006 Timo Schulz
- Version 0.9.0
+ Version 1.0.0
  @settitle WinPT - The Windows Privacy Tray; a free GPG front-end
 Line 16 
 Version 0.9.0
  First you need to have a working GnuPG 1.4 installtion on the machine you plan to install WinPT.
  If you do not have GPG in your machine, please visit http://www.gnupg.org and download the latest
- GPG version there. It comes with a graphical installer so there is no need to do this step manually.
+ GPG version there. It comes with a graphical installer so there is no need to do the
+ installation manually.
  You need at least Windows 98/2K/XP, but Windows XP or better is recommend. The program also works
  on NT/95/ME but there is no support for these OS versions any longer. Mainly because the OS
  vendor also dropped support and no bug fixes will be provided any longer.
- And it is very likely that work optimal on such platforms.
+ And it is very likely that the program does not work optimal on such platforms.
  @section A short Introduction
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 I recommend to use Gpg4Win which include
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 I recommend to use Gpg4Win which include
  is very easy to use with an average size (~4MB). For non-German speaking users, I recommend the
  light version because it does not contain the 2 German PDF manuals.
- @subsection Getting the Source of the Program
- As free software, according to the GNU General Public License, WinPT also offers the source code
- for the program. It can be used for reviews, to compile your own binary and/or to modify and/or
- redistribute it or just to learn how it works. The source is available at the same place you
- downloaded the binary. If not, you should contact the author of the site.
- The entire program can be build with free software; the default environment is a cross-compiler
- hosted on a Linux box. All you need is the mingw32 packages, a working autoconf environment
- and the libs WinPT depends on (currently gpgme and libgpg-error).
- It is also possible to build the binary with cygwin/mingw32 on Windows but this environment is
- not actively supported and propably needs adjustment of the source.
  @subsection Configure the Program
  After the installation not much of the default settings need to be changed. If you prefer a
  special keyserver, it is propably a good idea to open the keyserver dialog and to set one of the
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 related to the hotkeys.
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 related to the hotkeys.
  To enable keyring backups, the user can either decide to use the GPG home directory as the backup
  folder or any other folder. In the latter case, a folder needs to be chosen.
+ @subsection Getting the Source of the Program
+ As free software, according to the GNU General Public License, WinPT also offers the source code
+ for the program. It can be used for reviews, to compile your own binary and/or to modify and/or
+ redistribute it or just to learn how it works. The source is available at the same place you
+ downloaded the binary. If not, you should contact the author of the site.
+ The entire program can be build with free software; the default environment is a cross-compiler
+ hosted on a Linux box. All you need is the mingw32 packages, a working autoconf environment
+ and the libs WinPT depends on (currently gpgme and libgpg-error).
+ It is also possible to build the binary with cygwin/mingw32 on Windows but this environment is
+ not actively supported and propably needs adjustment of the source.
+ @section Native Language Support
+ The program has the ability to select different languages to provide dialogs and error messages
+ in the native language of the user. Currently German, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil) and Slovak.
+ When WinPT has been installed via a graphical installer, for example Gpg4Win, the language was
+ automatically selected based on the locale Windows environment. If the stand-alone binary was
+ downloaded, WinPT offers at the first start to select a language, based on the .mo file it
+ founded in the current directory.
+ Otherwise the user needs to perform the following steps. The WinPT ZIP archive contains various
+ .mo files (de.mo, jp.mo, sk.mo) and the user needs to find his native language, if available and
+ rename the file to "winpt.mo". For example, if the user prefers German, "de.mo" -> "winpt.mo".
+ Now the user needs to save the locale dir, where the winpt.mo is stored, in the GPG preference dialog.
  @section The First Start
  This section is only important for people who never installed and/or used WinPT before and thus
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 This is definitely an important decision
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 This is definitely an important decision
  is no way to recover the encrypted data. That is why it is also important to store the backup, at
  least of the secret keyring, at a @strong{safe} place.
+ @subsection Use existing Keyrings and/or Keys
+ If you already have a valid OpenPGP key pair and you do not want to generate a new key pair, you
+ should select the second choice at the first start. Then the program will copy your existing keyrings
+ to the new home directory. Please bear in mind that you need to set the ownertrust manually for each
+ imported key. You can skip this step if you exported the ownertrust manually to a file, but because
+ this is a step for experienced users it is not described here. The most important step is, to set
+ your own key to ultimate ownertrust after import.
+ If you have other OpenPGP programs and you wish to use the keys from this application, it is a good
+ idea to select all keys you want to use and to export them into a single file. Then open the WinPT
+ Key Manager and drag the file into the Key Manager window.
  @section The Passphrase for the Secret Key
  First a short explaination what passphrase is. A passphrase is like a password but usually
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 remind and then take the first letter of
+Line 190 
 remind and then take the first letter of
  some intentionally made spelling mistakes.
  Example: Row - row - row your boat, gently down the stream
- Passphrase: "R - r - ryb,gdt"
+ Passphrase: "R - r - ryb,gdts"
  Never write down or passphrase or share it among other people!
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gmx.net
+Line 234 
gmx.net
  @subsection Search for a key by pattern
  If you want to communicate with a new mail partner and you are not sure about the key ID, it can
  be useful to search for his email address. This address is considered as quite unique.
+ Not all keyserver support this query mode, so if you get an error please use subkeys.pgp.net.
  An example:
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 Now a dialog is opened with a list of al
+Line 248 
 Now a dialog is opened with a list of al
  should be clicked. Then the key will be downloaded and added to your keyring. Now you can encrypt
  data with this key, for example an email.
  @subsection Sending a Key to the Keyserver
  After you generated a new key pair, it is a good idea to send your key to the keyserver to make
  it available for other users. If you issue a signature, the key ID is part of the signature and
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 clipboard data, the result would be unpr
+Line 310 
 clipboard data, the result would be unpr
  Compared to the clipboard mode, the CWS mode has some advantages. Let us assume that you want to
  extract text from an editor window. With the CWS mode, the program automatically tries to focus
  the window to select the text and to copy it to the clipboard and execute the
- selected command (Sign, Encrypt, Decrypt).
+ selected command (Sign, Encrypt, Decrypt) and pastes back the GPG data to the window.
  No manual user interaction is needed. Except this different behaviour, it is very likewise to the
  clipboard mode and thus we do not describe each command again.
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 This can be useful if data should not be
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 This can be useful if data should not be
  @end itemize
+ @section A short Note about Cryptographic Issues
+ WinPT itself does not perform any real encryption, signing or decryption. Instead it uses
+ GPG as the backend program which provides all kind of cryptographic code to perform the
+ needed operations.
+ The default values WinPT uses for key sizes, should be sufficient for personal and commercial
+ security for the next years. If you are concerned about the default values, you can always use
+ the expert key generation to make your own decision. GPG also provides
+ default values for symmetric cipher preferences. By default, the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)
+ is used which provides a very good security. You can manually modify your key preferences, this
+ includes cipher, hash, and compression but usually this is not necessary and also can do harm if
+ you use algorithms which are not very widespread among other OpenPGP programs.
+ @section WinPT and Personal Firewalls
+ Because the program uses a global hook to remember the last active current window, it might be
+ possible that Firewalls warn that the process contains a global hook which is a potential
+ security risk. In some cases, there might be even a warning that key logging is possible.
+ This is a false alarm because the hook provided by the program, a CTB (Computer Based Training)
+ hook, can be only used to save handles of newly created windows, or windows which are
+ activated or in case of a focus change. Details can be found in the source code of the program
+ or additional information about the CTB hook at msdn.microsoft.com
+ To provide access to keyservers and to download HTTP keys, the program
+ needs to be able to make outbound connections to the following ports: 80 (http), 11371 (keyserver)
+ @subsection Using a HTTP Proxy
+ If you are behind a firewall and you have no chance make a connection to a keyserver, maybe
+ because of a policy, you can use a http proxy for outbound connections. Open the Keyserver dialog
+ and click on the button "Change Proxy". A new dialog opens where you can enter the proxy specific
+ host name and ports. If the proxy requires authentication, you also have to provide your user name
+ and your password. Please bear in mind that only a base64 authentication is supported and no other
+ proxy types (SOCKS for example) can be used.
  @section Reporting a Problem (Bug) or a Feature Request
  For the case that you have problems with the program, that includes crashes or or the handling,

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