* What's this?
-EasyPG is yet another GnuPG interface for Emacs. It consists of three
-parts: transparent file encryption utility, Gnus/PGG backend, and
-elisp library to interact with GnuPG.
+EasyPG is yet another GnuPG interface for Emacs. It consists of two parts:
-* Requirements
+epa.el - EasyPG Assistant, a basic GUI of GnuPG
+epg.el - the EasyPG library which interacts with GnuPG
-** GNU Emacs 21.4 or later
+NOTE: EasyPG is not a fork or a re-implementation of Gnus/PGG.
-** XEmacs 21.4 or later
+* Requirements
-** GnuPG 1.4.3 or later
+** GNU Emacs 21.4 or later, XEmacs 21.4 or later
-** Gnus 5.10.8 or later (optional)
+** GnuPG 1.4.3 or later
* Quick start
$ ./configure
$ sudo make install
-** Transparent file encryption utility
+Add the following line to your ~/.emacs
-EasyPG provides transparent file encryption utility similar to
-crypt++, alpaca.el, hedgehog. To try this, add the following line to
-your ~/.emacs and C-x C-f ~/test.txt.gpg.
+(require 'epa-setup)
-(require 'epg-file)
+* Advantages over other competitors
-** Gnus/PGG backend
+There are many competitors of EasyPG such as Mailcrypt, Gnus/PGG,
+gpg.el, etc. EasyPG has some advantages over them.
-EasyPG provides an implementation of the backend interface of
-Gnus/PGG. To use EasyPG instead of pgg-gpg, install pgg-epg.el and
-add the following line to your ~/.gnus.
+** EasyPG avoides potential security flaws of Emacs
-(setq pgg-scheme 'epg)
+See "Security consideration" section.
-* Advantages over other competitors
+** GnuPG features are directly accessible from Emacs
-There are many competitors of EasyPG such as Mailcrypt, Gnus/PGG,
-gpg.el, etc. EasyPG has some advantages over them.
+Other competitors provide only specific features of GnuPG since they
+still support PGP 2.*, 5.*, 6.*. As the name indicates, EasyPG is
+inspired by GPGME (GnuPG Made Easy), and the library interface is
+close to GPGME. With EasyPG you can benefit from a lot of features of
+GnuPG.
-** EasyPG avoides potential security flaws of Emacs.
+* Security consideration
-*** `call-process-region' writes data in region to temporary files.
+** `call-process-region' writes data in region to a temporary file
-`call-process-region' writes data in region to temporary files.
-EasyPG do _not_ use `call-process-region' to communicate with a gpg
+`call-process-region' writes data in region to a temporary file.
+EasyPG does *not* use `call-process-region' to communicate with a gpg
subprocess.
-*** `(fillarray string 0)' is not enough to clear passphrases
+** `(fillarray string 0)' is not enough to clear passphrases
If Emacs crashed and dumps core, passphrase strings in memory are also
dumped within the core file. `read-passwd' function clears passphrase
strings may be moved elsewhere in memory.
Fortunately, there is gpg-agent to cache passphrases in more secure
-way, so EasyPG dares _not_ to cache passphrase. Elisp programs can
-set `epg-context-passphrase-callback' to cache user's passphrases.
-
-** GnuPG features are directly accessible from Emacs
-
-Other competitors provide only specific features of GnuPG since they
-still support PGP 2.*, 5.*, 6.*. As the name indicates, EasyPG is
-inspired by GPGME (GnuPG Made Easy), and the library interface is
-close to GPGME. With EasyPG you can benefit from a lot of features of
-GnuPG.
+way, so the EasyPG library dares *not* to cache passphrase by itself.
+Elisp programs can set `epg-context-passphrase-callback' to cache
+user's passphrases.