NAME
pgpverify - cryptographically verify Usenet control messages
SYNOPSIS
pgpverify
DESCRIPTION
The pgpverify program reads (on standard input) a Usenet control
message that has been cryptographically signed using the signcontrol
program. pgpverify then uses the pgp program to determine who signed
the control message. If the control message was validly signed,
pgpverify outputs (to stdout) the User ID of the key ID that signed the
message.
OPTIONS
The pgpverify program takes no options.
EXIT STATUS
pgpverify returns the follow exit statuses for the following cases:
0 The control message had a good PGP signature.
1 The control message had no PGP signature.
2 The control message had an unknown PGP signature.
3 The control message had a bad PGP signature.
255 A problem occurred not directly related to PGP analysis of
signature.
AUTHOR
David C Lawrence <tale@isc.org>
ENVIRONMENT
pgpverify does not modify or otherwise alter the environment before
invoking the pgp program. It is the responsibility of the person who
installs pgpverify to ensure that when pgp runs, it has the ability to
locate and read a PGP key file that contains the PGP public keys for
the appropriate Usenet hierarchy administrators.
SEE ALSO
pgp(1)
NOTES
Historically, Usenet news server administrators have configured their
news servers to automatically honor Usenet control messages based on
the originator of the control messages and the hierarchies for which
the control messages applied. For example, in the past, David C
Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net> always issued control messages for the
"Big 8" hierarchies (comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc,
talk). Usenet news administrators would configure their news server
software to automatically honor newgroup and rmgroup control messages
that originated from David Lawrence and applied to any of the Big 8
hierarchies.
Unfortunately, Usenet news articles (including control messages) are
notoriously easy to forge. Soon, malicious users realized they could
create or remove (at least temporarily) any Big 8 newsgroup they wanted
by simply forging an appropriate control message in David Lawrence’s
name. As Usenet became more widely used, forgeries became more common.
The pgpverify program was designed to allow Usenet news administrators
to configure their servers to cryptographically verify control messages
before automatically acting on them. Under the pgpverify system, a
Usenet hierarchy maintainer creates a PGP public/private key pair and
disseminates the public key. Whenever the hierarchy maintainer issues
a control message, he uses the signcontrol program to sign the control
message with the PGP private key. Usenet news administrators configure
their news servers to run the pgpverify program on the appropriate
control messages, and take action based on the PGP key User ID that
signed the control message, not the name and address that appear in the
control message’s From or Sender headers.
Thus, using the signcontrol and pgpverify programs appropriately
essentially eliminates the possibility of malicious users forging
Usenet control messages that sites will act upon, as such users would
have to obtain the PGP private key in order to forge a control message
that would pass the cryptographic verification step. If the hierarchy
administrators properly protect their PGP private keys, the only way a
malicious user could forge a validly-signed control message would be by
breaking the RSA encryption algorithm, which (at least at this time) is
believed to be an NP-complete problem. If this is indeed the case,
discovering the PGP private key based on the PGP public key is
computationally impossible for PGP keys of a sufficient bit length.
<URL:ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/pgpcontrol/> is where the most recent
versions of signcontrol and pgpverify live, along with PGP public keys
used for hierarchy administration.
pgpverify(8)