GnuPG (win32) on a USB stick

[John W. Moore III]

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nunzky wrote:

> I want to keep GnuPG on a USB stick to use at school and on other people's
> computers (all windows). However, GPG, when run, creates the keyrings and
> conf files on the HDD (documents and settings\appdata). Is it possible to
> avoid this behavior and have GnuPG write those files, say, in its own dir on
> my usb stick? How would I do this?

2 ways are easily available depending upon the size of Your Flash Drive.
 You could use GPG2GO and do everything from the Command Line or You
could simply Copy Your GnuPG Directory/Folder to the Flash Drive and
then use the GPGshell Portable Utility [located at the bottom of the
Start Menu list] and then run with a GUI.
http://www.jumaros.de/rsoft/index.html

> Also, this would probably have to involve me keeping my private key on the
> usb stick, protected only by a passphrase. How secure is this? Are there any
> better ways to do it?

How secure is Your passphrase?

Robert already covered the issues involved in using an untrusted PC.
Also keep in mind that not having control over the PC also means no
Control over the Swap File, whether or not any Keyloggers are present,
etc.  Another consideration is that many Public PC's have the ability to
launch any .exe File blocked.  This is particularly true in Library's
and other places where there is a concern that Students will attempt to
install malware, etc.

If You are just going to be using the USB Drive for Email then there are
Applications like Mobility Email & Portable Thunderbird w/Enigmail + GnuPG.

JOHN ;)
Timestamp: Sunday 02 Mar 2008, 23:38  --500 (Eastern Standard Time)
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Comment: Gossamer Spider Web of Trust: https://www.gswot.org
Comment: Homepage:  http://tinyurl.com/yzhbhx

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