8.3.2. Decrypting an encrypted message

This is a message that John Random Hacker sent encrypted to me:

The status of the OpenPGP bar, the key in the headers bar, and the key icon lit green in the corner, indicate that the message was correctly decrypted.
By default, the message is automatically decrypted as it is opened. If you ever want to change this setting, deselect the option OpenPGP → Automatically Decrypt/Verify Messages; then you can decrypt messages by hand by clicking the Decrypt button in the toolbar.

If I look at the message source (command View → Message Source from the mailclient menu) I can see the raw message as it was transferred through the network, and as anyone who is not the intended recipient would see the message – and get a confirmation that the secret has been preserved from prying eyes:

(... several mail headers omitted ...)
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:06:10 +0100
From: John Random Hacker
To: Daniele Raffo
Subject: Secret location
X-Enigmail-Version: 0.96.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Charset: ISO-8859-1
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32)

hQIOA4xGg4nhqxetEAf/b4Kv/WJyC1MsFkhqgyqm7b1VGXQgN8uO3G7PSe5IyIPQ
zKnEehaz989yofvkLcqq3wImHhj+YaSIZ8FJu1xyu1vQwTwxrmDoRdV+93vjGVbt
HTKV+knUvwzBUkLCRWO6GaAjOBrV+t0RnJ3yAzEgo/UX+7+wZqnng/LIFUVLCcr8
z/cN7CkLBVB2d/qyOXcU7gLq3/EdgHxIe8tqOwnYEugfqDtJp8oQtMUwXiw71X+d
(... 18 lines omitted ...)
TNJ3AYBiN1euvmfekgrZhxKLXGMOnBT9tebjIoNqj4Jh3AI91Eg/EUsiufbsqXaQ
IzM2ZBrzjhG5hczgcQUTdFDpRtDAdYhpSAWGKDj/Vpvcj9KXn6pAsS47L22UxO4N
1rMZrWOQVWSURhZtSO8xHKg4/eLAHPatDLM=3D
=3DktOd
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

The previous message was encrypted but not signed. Here's how it looks compared to a message that is both signed and encrypted:

I can use Adele's services to test that my messages are encrypted and decrypted correctly. As you remember, I have imported Adele's public key in my keyring, and I am therefore able to send her an encrypted message:

If I look in my Sent folder there is my message, automatically decrypted as I open it. I am able to read it only because Enigmail, by default, encrypts any outgoing message with the sender's public key too. Shouldn't Enigmail do that, the message would look gibberish to me – even if I was the creator of the message. The next figure shows my own message, correctly decrypted:

A short time later, I receive Adele's reply:

Notice that the OpenPGP status bar warns that the mail body is partly encrypted: Adele's message is, while the note at the bottom isn't.