Private Idaho version 1.1 (January 12, 1995) - Freeware copyright 1995, Joel McNamara (joelm@eskimo.com) What it does -------------- Private Idaho makes private e-mail easier. It simplifies using PGP and the cypherpunk anonymous remailers. Although the program is designed to work with QUALCOMM's freeware Eudora for Windows (I'm using 1.4.4) e-mail software, it can be used by other Windows e-mail applications. What it doesn't do -------------------- Private Idaho isn't e-mail software. It can't send the messages you create with it. Think of it as an e-mail premailing tool. Private Idaho doesn't automatically keep track of which remailers are active. The list of remailers and USENET gateways included is current as of January 4, 1995. You'll need to manually keep the text file updated to stay current. To see a list of anonymous remailers, finger remailer-list@kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu or via the Web http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html. Private Idaho isn't a PGP shell. It is just meant to make sending private e-mail easier. Don't expect sophisticated key management and access to all of PGP's features. Requirements -------------- Microsoft Windows 3.x Visual Basic runtime file (VBRUN300.DLL - not included) QUALCOMM Eudora for Windows (optional, for the most part) PGP (Pretty Good Privacy - 2.6.2 is the latest MIT version) Installation -------------- Copy the following files to the directory that contains Eudora: PIDAHO.EXE the application CPMAILER.TXT the cypherpunk remailer list USENET.TXT the list of mail to USENET newsgroup gateways PIDAHO.TXT this file Copy the following file to the directory (or disk) that contains PGP: PIPGP.PIF for easy shelling to DOS PGP If you don't use Eudora, copy all of the files to the PGP directory. Add PIDAHO.EXE to a Windows program group of your choice. You're ready to go... To encrypt a message: ----------------------- 1. Enter the e-mail address of the person you want to send the encrypted message to. (Since most people will use their e-mail address as part of their PGP user ID, Private Idaho will search through the public key ring looking for a match. If it finds a match, it will encrypt off of that key. If it can't find a match, user IDs in the public key ring are displayed, and you select one.) 2. Compose the message you want to encrypt in the message box. 3. Choose the "Encrypt message" command from the PGP menu. Private Idaho will create a temporary file containing the message, shell out to PGP and encrypt the file with ASCII armor, copy the encrypted text to the message box, and delete the temporary file with the PGP wipe command (yes, wipe only performs a single pass at overwriting the data before deleting, if you need more security, try a shareware memory resident app called Real Delete). To encrypt and sign a message: -------------------------------- Same as encrypting a message (only you choose the "Encrypt and sign message" command from the PGP menu). To sign a message: -------------------- Same steps as encrypting a message (only you choose the "Clear sign message" command from the PGP menu). This adds your signature to the text contained in the message box. The text is not encrypted. To decrypt a message: ----------------------- 1. Paste the encrypted message you received to the message box. 2. Choose the "Decrypt message" command from the PGP menu. You will be prompted for your passphrase. Private Idaho will create a temporary file containing the message, shell out to PGP and decrypt the file, copy the decrypted text to the message box, and delete the temporary file with the PGP wipe command. To set PGP options: --------------------- 1. Choose the "Options..." command from the PGP menu. Not that many options to select really. Just the PGP path (which is extracted from the PGPPATH environment variable - which you should have set if you followed the PGP installation instructions) and your PGP user ID. You can use the entire user ID (i.e. Joel McNamara ) or a portion of it. You are prompted for this when Private Idaho starts. Both of these options are stored in the PIDAHO.INI file (which Private Idaho creates when you first run it). To send mail through one anonymous remailer: ---------------------------------------------- 1. Compose the message and specify who you want to send the mail to in the To: line. 2. Select a remailer from the Remailer: combo list. 3. Choose the "Append info to message" command from the Remailer menu. The appropriate remailer instructions are added to the contents of the message box. The remailer address is passed to Eudora when you choose the "To Eudora" command from the Transfer menu. If you don't use Eudora, you'll need to manually enter this address in your e-mail software. To chain a message (send it through multiple remailers): ---------------------------------------------------------- 1. Follow the same steps as above, but choose "chain" from the Remailer: combo list box. 2. A list of remailers is displayed. Select the ones you wish to chain. 3. Choose the "Append info to message" command from the Remailer menu. The appropriate remailer instructions are added to the contents of the message box. You might notice that if you chain say 5 remailers, only 4 appear in the message box. This is because Private Idaho stores the first and appends it to the To: line when the information is transferred to Eudora. If you're not using Eudora, you can copy the contents of the message box and paste it into your own e-mail software, but you'll need to manually enter the first remailer in the To: line. To encrypt mail and send it through an anonymous mailer: ---------------------------------------------------------- 1. Encrypt the message first. 2. Select the appropriate remailer(s) and choose the "Append info to message" command from the Remailer menu. If you don't follow this order, you'll end up encrypting the remailer instructions. The remailers are smart, but not that smart. To send anonymous mail to a newsgroup: ---------------------------------------- 1. Select the gateway from the To: combo box. Edit the gateway address by deleting "group.name" and entering the appropriate newsgroup name, i.e. "alt.2600". (The "Anonymous USENET Gateways" item is just a place holder and is not a valid address.) 2. Select a remailer (or "chain") from Remailer: list box. 3. Choose the "Append info to message" command from the "Remailer" menu. IMPORTANT NOTE: Sending an e-mail message to one of the gateways will not anonymize the mail. You must send it through a remailer first. Please test by sending mail to someplace like alt.test before doing it for real. To get all of the cool cypherpunk data back into Eudora: ---------------------------------------------------------- 1. Make sure Eudora is running and the New Message window is displayed in front (has focus). Use the "New Message" command in the Message menu. The cursor should be on the To: line. 2. In the Private Idaho "Transfer" menu, choose the "To Eudora" command. This transfers the address information and message contents you entered in Private Idaho to Eudora. Technically, this is a pretty dumb operation. It does a series of Clipboard copies and pastes (with SendKeys) to Eudora. Poor man's DDE or OLE. If you don't have the New Message window open or the cursor is somewhere other than the To: line, Private Idaho will happily try to paste the data in whatever Eudora window is active. Other stuff ------------- When you run Private Idaho, the screen will go black, and depending on how slow your machine is, you may get a brief glimpse of the PGP DOS screen before the Windows app first appears. This ugliness occurs when Private Idaho shells out to PGP and redirects the contents of the public ring to a text file named PUBKEYS.OUT. Kind of cheesy, but effective since VB doesn't easily support redirected output from shelled DOS apps. If you modify the remailers text file, please leave the "none" and "chain" entries alone. Private Idaho needs them to work correctly. You'll notice the To: line has a combo box. If you are using Eudora, Private Idaho will read the contents from the RCPDBASE.TXT file. This is where Eudora stores e-mail addresses you added as a recipient with the Add as recipient command in the Special menu. USENET gateways that support posting to newsgroups are appended to this combo box. If you're not using Eudora, create a text file named RCPDBASE.TXT with commonly used mail address (i.e. joelm@eskimo.com) on each line. Put this file in the same directory as Private Idaho. Practical limitation of text in the message box, approximately 32K. Total anonymous mailers to list for chaining, 30. Private Idaho currently does not offer any features that work with remailers that support automatic PGP encryption (where you supply the public key for the remailer). The name Private Idaho comes from a catchy B-52s song. No deep social meaning, just had a nice ring to it. This is a whole lot of text for a pretty simple app, but hey, once a tech writer, always a tech writer. Command summary ----------------- File Exit - just what it sounds like Edit Cut - standard Copy - standard Paste - standard Clear message - clears any text in the message box Copy message - copies any text in the message box to the Clipboard Paste messages - pastes Clipboard text to the message box PGP Encrypt message - encrypts text in the message box Encrypt and sign message - encrypts and signs text in the message box Clear sign message - attaches a signature to text in the message box Decrypt message - decrypts PGP ciphertext in the message box Options - sets PGP path and your user ID Remailer Append info to message - adds remailer info to message box text Transfer To Eudora - transfers data to Eudora new message Help About... - brief info Information... - displays this file Future versions ----------------- As mentioned before, Private Idaho is meant to be simple. I didn't want to clutter it up. However, some obvious cypherpunk things Private Idaho doesn't support that will likely be added in future versions include: Selective remailer chaining order Cut-marks Latent-time ## Headers Remailer encryption with PGP public keys User configurable for other Windows e-mail software "Real" app that doesn't require the VB runtime Release history ----------------- 1/5/95 1.0 release 1/12/95 1.1 release fixed path and .INI problems in load routine cosmetic changes to the interface