Overview

This is a quick proof-of-concept on how to use BlackBox, StackExchange's GPG encryption wrapper. The commits in this repository are resultant from the commands executed below.

Instructions

First, install it.

brew install blackbox

Then create an empty Git repo.

mkdir /tmp/blackbox-demo && cd blackbox-demo
git init

And then initialize it for blackbox.

blackbox_initialize

When this is done it should prompt you to do a commit.

git commit -m'INITIALIZE BLACKBOX' keyrings /private/tmp/blackbox-demo/.gitignore

The, just create some file with presumably sensitive data in it.

echo "super secret" > secret_data.txt

Now, create a new GPG key if you don't have one already. You can tell if you have one by typing gpg --list-keys

gpg --gen-key

Once you have a key, add it as a Blackbox admin by running blackbox_admin

blackbox_addadmin dansullivan@gmail.com

When you add a new admin you will get prompted to do an additional commit.

git commit -m'NEW ADMIN: dansullivan@gmail.com' \
keyrings/live/pubring.gpg keyrings/live/trustdb.gpg keyrings/live/blackbox-admins.txt

Once you have your admin setup you should be able to register a new file. This will encrypt it.

blackbox_register_new_file secret_data.txt

Registering the new file will:

1. Rename the file to secret_data.txt.gpg
2. Add the de-crypted file's name to .gitignore to ensure it won't get check in unencrypted.
3. Create a new commit visibile in git log

Using Blackbox

Decrypting Files

Decrypting a file encrypted by Blackbox will likely be desired as some point. If the above process was followed, the original should be added to .gitignore, so inadvertently adding it via a git add operation should no longer be a concern. Decrypting Blackbox files can be achieved with:

blackbox_decrypt_all_files