Monkeysign: OpenPGP Key Exchange for Humans¶
Monkeysign is a tool to overhaul the OpenPGP keysigning experience and bring it closer to something that most primates can understand.
The project makes use of cheap digital cameras and the type of bar code known as a QRcode to provide a human-friendly yet still-secure keysigning experience.
No more reciting tedious strings of hexadecimal characters. And, you can build a little rogue’s gallery of the people that you have met and exchanged keys with! (Well, not yet, but it’s part of the plan.)
Monkeysign also features a user-friendly commandline tool, similar to
caff
, to sign OpenPGP keys following the current best practices.
Monkeysign was written by Jerome Charaoui and Antoine Beaupre and is licensed under GPLv3.
Features¶
- commandline and GUI interface
- GUI supports exchanging fingerprints with qrcodes
- print your OpenPGP fingerprint on a QRcode
- key signature done on a separate keyring
- signature sent in an encrypted email to ensure:
- the signee controls the signed email
- the signee controls the private key
- the signee decides what to do with the signature
- local (“non-exportable”) signatures
- send through local email server, arbitrary SMTP server or other programs
For usage instructions, see Usage section, for install instructions, see Install section and for support, see the Contribute section.
Similar projects¶
- OpenKeychain, a fork of APG, has support for exporting and importing fingerprints in QRcode and NFC. It uses similar strings for QRcodes exchanges and is compatible with Monkeysign. (Github project)
- GPG for Android (of the Guardian project) will import public keys in your device’s keyring when they are found in QRcodes, so it should be able to talk with Monkeysign, but this remains to be tested. (Github project)
- Gibberbot (also of the Guardian project) can exchange OTR fingerprints using QRcodes. (Github project)