156 Chapter 11
What Can Go Wrong?
Although OpenPGP provides a reliable method of proving
message authenticity, note that the acronym PGP stands for
Pretty Good Privacy. It doesn’t stand for Perfectly Grand Privacy,
let alone Penultimate Guaranteed Privacy. Pretty Good means
exactly that—it’s better than what existed before, but it isn’t
unbreakable. Mallory (any bad guy; see Chapter 1) has many
methods to break OpenPGP’s protections. Most of the meth-
ods Mallory can use to violate someone’s privacy play off a
victim’s ignorance. Remember the finer points of OpenPGP
usage (as discussed following), and you’ll frustrate Mallory so
much that he’ll give up and go bother someone else.
Poor Usage
By far, the most common way that OpenPGP is weakened is ...