gnupg/doc/announce-2.1.txt

Hello!

The GnuPG Project is pleased to announce the availability of a
new release: Version 2.1.0.

The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is a complete and free implementation of
the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC-4880 and better known as PGP.

GnuPG, also known as GPG, allows to encrypt and sign data and
communication, features a versatile key management system as well as
access modules for public key directories.  GnuPG itself is a command
line tool with features for easy integration with other applications.
A wealth of frontend applications and libraries making use of GnuPG
are available.  Since version 2 GnuPG provides support for S/MIME and
Secure Shell in addition to OpenPGP.

GnuPG is Free Software (meaning that it respects your freedom). It can
be freely used, modified and distributed under the terms of the GNU
General Public License.

Three different versions of GnuPG are actively maintained:

- GnuPG "modern" (2.1) is the latest development with a lot of new
  features.  This announcement is about the first release of this
  version.

- GnuPG "stable" (2.0) is the current stable version for general use.
  This is what most users are currently using.

- GnuPG "classic" (1.4) is the old standalone version which is most
  suitable for older or embedded platforms.

You may not install "modern" (2.1) and "stable" (2.0) at the same
time.  However, it is possible to install "classic" (1.4) along with
any of the other versions.


What's New in GnuPG-2.1
=======================

  - The file "secring.gpg" is not anymore used to store the secret
    keys.  Merging of secret keys is now supported.

  - All support for PGP-2 keys has been removed for security reasons.

  - The standard key generation interface is now much leaner.  This
    will help a new user to quickly generate a suitable key.

  - Support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is now available.

  - Commands to create and sign keys from the command line without any
    extra prompts are now available.

  - The Pinentry may now show the new passphrase entry and the
    passphrase confirmation entry in one dialog.

  - There is no more need to manually start the gpg-agent.  It is now
    started by any part of GnuPG as needed.

  - Problems with importing keys with the same long key id have been
    addressed.

  - The Dirmngr is now part of GnuPG proper and also takes care of
    accessing keyserver.

  - Keyserver pools are now handled in a smarter way.

  - A new format for locally storing the public keys is now used.
    This considerable speeds up operations on large keyrings.

  - Revocation certificates are now created by default.

  - Card support has been updated, new readers and token types are
    supported.

  - The format of the key listing has been changed to better identify
    the properties of a key.

  - The gpg-agent may now be used on Windows as a Pageant replacement
    for Putty in the same way it is used for years on Unix as
    ssh-agent replacement.

  - Creation of X.509 certificates has been improved.  It is now also
    possible to export them directly in PKCS#8 and PEM format for use
    on TLS servers.

A detailed description of the changes can be found at
https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html .


Getting the Software
====================

Please follow the instructions found at https://gnupg.org/download/ or
read on:

GnuPG 2.1.0 may be downloaded from one of the GnuPG mirror sites or
direct from its primary FTP server.  The list of mirrors can be found
at https://gnupg.org/mirrors.html .  Note that GnuPG is not available
at ftp.gnu.org.

On ftp.gnupg.org you find these files:

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2  (3039k)
 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2.sig

This is the GnuPG 2.1 source code compressed using BZIP2 and its
OpenPGP signature.

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.exe  (6225k)
 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.exe.sig

This is an experimental installer for Windows including GPA as
graphical key manager and GpgEX as an Explorer extension.  Please
de-install an already installed Gpg4win version before trying this
installer.  This binary version has not been tested very well, thus it
is likely that you will run into problems.  The complete source code
for the software included in this installer is in the same directory;
use the suffix ".tar.xz" instead of ".exe".

Although several beta versions have been released over the course of
the last years, no extensive public field test has been done.  Thus it
is likely that bugs will show up.  Please check the mailing list
archives and the new wiki https://wiki.gnupg.org for latest
information on known problems and workaround.


Checking the Integrity
======================

In order to check that the version of GnuPG which you are going to
install is an original and unmodified one, you can do it in one of
the following ways:

 * If you already have a version of GnuPG installed, you can simply
   verify the supplied signature.  For example to verify the signature
   of the file gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2 you would use this command:

     gpg --verify gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2.sig

   This checks whether the signature file matches the source file.
   You should see a message indicating that the signature is good and
   made by one or more of the release signing keys.  Make sure that
   this is a valid key, either by matching the shown fingerprint
   against a trustworthy list of valid release signing keys or by
   checking that the key has been signed by trustworthy other keys.
   See below for information on the signing keys.

 * If you are not able to use an existing version of GnuPG, you have
   to verify the SHA-1 checksum.  On Unix systems the command to do
   this is either "sha1sum" or "shasum".  Assuming you downloaded the
   file gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2, you would run the command like this:

     sha1sum gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2

   and check that the output matches the first line from the
   following list:

2fcd0ca6889ef6cb59e3275e8411f8b7778c2f33  gnupg-2.1.0.tar.bz2
9907cb6509a0e63331b27a92e25c1ef956caaf3b  gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.exe
28dc1365292c61fbb2bbae730d4158f425463c91  gnupg-w32-2.1.0_20141105.tar.xz


Release Signing Keys
====================

To guarantee that a downloaded GnuPG version has not been tampered by
malicious entities we provide signature files for all tarballs and
binary versions.  The keys are also signed by the long term keys of
their respective owners.  Current releases are signed by one or more
of these four keys:

  2048R/4F25E3B6 2011-01-12 [expires: 2019-12-31]
  Key fingerprint = D869 2123 C406 5DEA 5E0F  3AB5 249B 39D2 4F25 E3B6
  Werner Koch (dist sig)

  rsa2048/E0856959 2014-10-29 [expires: 2019-12-31]
  Key fingerprint = 46CC 7308 65BB 5C78 EBAB  ADCF 0437 6F3E E085 6959
  David Shaw (GnuPG Release Signing Key) <dshaw 'at' jabberwocky.com>

  rsa2048/33BD3F06 2014-10-29 [expires: 2016-10-28]
  Key fingerprint = 031E C253 6E58 0D8E A286  A9F2 2071 B08A 33BD 3F06
  NIIBE Yutaka (GnuPG Release Key) <gniibe 'at' fsij.org>

  rsa2048/7EFD60D9 2014-10-19 [expires: 2020-12-31]
  Key fingerprint = D238 EA65 D64C 67ED 4C30  73F2 8A86 1B1C 7EFD 60D9
  Werner Koch (Release Signing Key)

You may retrieve these files from the keyservers using this command

  gpg --recv-keys 249B39D24F25E3B6 04376F3EE0856959 \
                  2071B08A33BD3F06 8A861B1C7EFD60D9

The keys are also available at https://gnupg.org/signature_key.html
and in the released GnuPG tarball in the file g10/distsigkey.gpg .
Note that this mail has been signed using my standard PGP key.


Internationalization
====================

This new branch of GnuPG has support for 4 languages: French, German,
Japanese, and Ukrainian.  More translations can be expected with the
next point releases.


Documentation
=============

If you used GnuPG in the past you should read the description of
changes and new features at doc/whats-new-in-2.1.txt or online at

  https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html

The file gnupg.info has the complete user manual of the system.
Separate man pages are included as well but they have not all the
details available in the manual.  It is also possible to read the
complete manual online in HTML format at

  https://gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/

or in Portable Document Format at

  https://gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg.pdf .

The chapters on gpg-agent, gpg and gpgsm include information on how
to set up the whole thing.  You may also want search the GnuPG mailing
list archives or ask on the gnupg-users mailing lists for advise on
how to solve problems.  Many of the new features are around for
several years and thus enough public knowledge is already available.


Support
========

Please consult the archive of the gnupg-users mailing list before
reporting a bug <https://gnupg.org/documentation/mailing-lists.html>.
We suggest to send bug reports for a new release to this list in favor
of filing a bug at <https://bugs.gnupg.org>.  For commercial support
requests we keep a list of known service companies at:

  https://gnupg.org/service.html

The driving force behind the development of GnuPG is the company of
its principal author, Werner Koch.  Maintenance and improvement of
GnuPG and related software takes up most of their resources.  To allow
him to continue this work he kindly asks to either purchase a support
contract, engage g10 Code for custom enhancements, or to donate money:

  https://gnupg.org/donate/


Thanks
======

We have to thank all the people who helped with this release, be it
testing, coding, translating, suggesting, auditing, administering the
servers, spreading the word, and answering questions on the mailing
lists.  A final big Thank You goes to Hal Finney, who too early passed
away this year.  Hal worked on PGP and helped to make OpenPGP a great
standard; it has been a pleasure having worked with him.