Question:
Decrypting a pgp message?
bob
2017-03-05 05:22:52 UTC
I have an encrypted pgp message and the public pgp key of the sender. How do deceypt this message?
Four answers:
Uncle Pennybags
2017-03-10 18:11:24 UTC
You can't.



The public key exists and can be given out freely, because it is used to encrypt a message for that person. But only that person's private key can decrypt the message.



Unless you have the private key of that same person, you are out of luck.
Richard
2017-03-05 15:56:53 UTC
PGP, GPG and other non-symmetric encryption schemes require two different keys to use them. Each pair of keys can either be treated as two private keys or one public key and one private key. (The two public key case is trivial as it does not offer any proper security.)



One key is used to encrypt the message, and the matching second key is used to decrypt the message. Since the operation of each key is a one way process, it is not possible to decrypt a message even if you have only the key that was used to perform the encryption.



Public encryption and private decryption keys are used to send data securely from multiple sources to a single recipient. This guarantees that only the one recipient can use the data.



Private encryption and public decryption keys allow recipients to guarantee that the data has come from the specific sender.



You can double encrypt messages. A message is encrypted with public key 1 then the results are encrypted again using private key 2. The recipient decrypts with public key 2 and 'knows' that the message originated from the specific source. Anyone can get to this stage using public key 2. However, the message still needs to be decrypted with private key 1 to read the actual contents. Since a private key is involved at both ends, then the transfer is secure.



For your message, you will need the private key that corresponds to the public key used to encrypt the message. As encryption and decryption are both one way processes, you cannot decrypt the message with the key that was used to encrypt it.



If you do not have the private key, then you should contact the sender to find out how you can get the appropriate decryption key.



I hope this helps.
?
2017-03-05 06:20:23 UTC
sure better know who sent it, might unload a world of shi tt
Bill
2017-03-05 06:10:34 UTC
You can't unless the message was sent to you and encrypted using your public key. That's what pgp is all about.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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