My past emails, like hello@buymymojo.net, have been shackled to google because I relied on βLogin with googleβ a little too much when I was younger and now Iβm stuck with itβ¦ at least until I wanna deal with the horrors of figuring out what accounts Iβll lose access too.
In the mean time I need a new personal email that actually fits my needs! For this I decided on purelymail as it is just one of the best deals around if you just need email, which is what Iβm here for.
My new email is hello@aria.coffee! More on communication standards and stuff bellow!
GPG
So for the longest time I have handled PGP very poorly, my main use case was literally just βI want that pretty verified label on my github commitsβ which is NOT a good reason!
I am setting out to fix this and learn why things are done the way they are, my main goals is to have a key I can proudly display on my website and know I did everything properly and have taken proper measures to not lose it.
First thing first is to generate the key, so one ed25519 generation later and we have it!
gpg --full-generate-key
Next I need to make revoke keys just in case. I will create two keys, one for if the key is compromised and one for if I replace this key in the future.
gpg --gen-revoke 49776EAC872B884B > 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_comp.asc
# Please select the reason for the revocation:
# 0 = No reason specified
# 1 = Key has been compromised
# 2 = Key is superseded
# 3 = Key is no longer used
# Q = Cancel
# (Probably you want to select 1 here)
# Your decision? 1
# Enter an optional description; end it with an empty line:
# > Please look https://aria.coffee/blog for more details!
gpg --gen-revoke 49776EAC872B884B > 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_superseded.asc
# Please select the reason for the revocation:
# 0 = No reason specified
# 1 = Key has been compromised
# 2 = Key is superseded
# 3 = Key is no longer used
# Q = Cancel
# (Probably you want to select 1 here)
# Your decision? 2
# Enter an optional description; end it with an empty line:
# > Please look https://aria.coffee/blog for more details!
Now I need to store these keys securely. I will create a 7z file that is encrypted
7z a -mx9 -mmt=off -pPASSWORDHERE 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_comp.asc 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_superseded.asc
Since I want to store these files digitally somewhere and 7z doesnβt have redundancy I will have to create some recovery data myself using par2cmdline
par2 c -r25 ./49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.par2 ./49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z
Here I am using -r25
to specify that I want enough recovery data that 25% of the archive could be corrupt and I still want to get it back, it is over kill and produces files totalling more than the origional archive but total these files are tiny so it is fine for me. This is now what the folder contains:
.
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.par2
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol00+01.par2
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol01+02.par2
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol03+04.par2
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol07+08.par2
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol15+16.par2
βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol31+11.par2
One encrypted 7z containing the keys and 8 files that hold all the data I need to keep it safe from bitrot.
just a quick cleanip before I do the same with a backup of my private key
mkdir pgp_revoke_keys && mv ./*.* ./pgp_revoke_keys/
# .
# βββ pgp_revoke_keys
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol00+01.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol01+02.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol03+04.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol07+08.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol15+16.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z.vol31+11.par2
now to quickly backup my private and public keys
# Export
gpg --export-secret-keys --armor 49776EAC872B884B > 49776EAC872B884B_secret.asc
gpg --export --armor 49776EAC872B884B > 49776EAC872B884B_public.asc
# Encrypt
7z a -mx9 -mmt=off -pPASSWORDHERE 49776EAC872B884B_revoke_keyz.7z 49776EAC872B884B_secret.asc
# Parity
par2 c -r25 ./49776EAC872B884B_keys.par2 -- ./49776EAC872B884B_secret.7z 49776EAC872B884B_public.asc
# .
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.vol00+01.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.vol01+02.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.vol03+04.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.vol07+08.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.vol15+16.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.vol31+32.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_keys.vol63+33.par2
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_public.asc
# βββ 49776EAC872B884B_secret.7z
This time I did parity a little different! we created the same 8 files but now they handle recovery for both 49776EAC872B884B_public.asc
and 49776EAC872B884B_secret.7z
since I plan on keeping those two together!
Now I have all the backups I need I can upload my keys linked to hello@aria.coffee to key servers!
gpg --send-keys 49776EAC872B884B # Defaults to https://keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg --keyserver https://keys.openpgp.org --send-keys 49776EAC872B884B
You can now find my key on both places by searching hello@aria.coffee!
Passwords & Secure Managment
I was going to go directly into SSH here but I needed to take care of something else first.
After talking to Ari I was convinced to move my password and key managment over to 1password.
After making anew account you are given an βEmergency Kitβ PDF which contains the email you signed up with, a secret key generated directly by your device and not their servers for recovering your account and a blank space to enter in your password.
Before this I used bitwarden so I exported my vault as a CSV file and took the time to clear out some unwanted fluf that I did not need savedβ¦ this experince was not very enjoyable, needing to manually tell 1password how to read the bitwarden CSV file isnβt fun.
Now that is over I can get into the real goodies that convinced me to switch, the 1password-cli
!
Using this cli I can manage my vault from the terminal as youβd expect but I can also use it to handle ssh auth and git commit signing! There are also a ton of shell plugins to automatically handle auth for different cli tools.
We will now move onto the next section where I can go more indepth into using 1password
SSH
Now that I have 1password I can quickly generate the ssh key:
op item create --category ssh --title "hello@aria.coffee"
# ID: [REDACTED]
# Title: hello@aria.coffee
# Vault: Personal ([REDACTED])
# Created: now
# Updated: now
# Favorite: false
# Version: 1
# Category: SSH_KEY
# Fields:
# public key: ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIBi5QCHIPTT6Uvq2SLxWUKxcN7RgdtrgJxVs2muVUbqe
# fingerprint: SHA256:WqtcVnDMrv1lnUlNah5k31iywFUI/DV+5yHzCTO4Vds
# private key: [use 'op item get [REDACTED] --reveal' to reveal]
# key type: ed25519
this quickly generated an ssh key with the public key ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIBi5QCHIPTT6Uvq2SLxWUKxcN7RgdtrgJxVs2muVUbqe
and saves it to my vault.
once the kay I need to add a simple section to my ssh config:
Host *
IdentityAgent ~/.1password/agent.sock
from here I just need to add the public key to clients and git hosts and weβre gaming, auth is even handles by 1password which can get set to use the same login flow as your system so if you have a finger print scanner setup you could use that for your ssh connections.
while adding my key to https://git.aria.coffee and https://git.witchcraft.systems I noticed something very cool, 1password has autofill support for Forgejo and github!

finally after editing my gitconfig all my commits are now signed with the same ssh key!
AGE
For encrypted messaging and files I prefer to use age! This tool can take in ssh keys as the identity for encryption so I have setup some fish aliases to to the following:
op read "op://Personal/[REDACTED]/public key" | age --encrypt --armor -R - input.txt # the fish alias would end at the - so I can both pass in my own files and add recipients
op read "op://Personal/[REDACTED]/private key?ssh-format=openssh" | age -d -i - input.txt
This uses 1password to fetch the correct key for encryption and decryption, making sure I can always decrypt my own files if needed.
Crypto
Thanks to me being trans in rurual middle of nowhere I have been ordering my HRT online and the most cost effective method to do so is crypto.
For holding onto my coin I chose to go with Exodus, Ari reccomended it when I brought up this topic with a group chat and it was a wallet I had already heard of before.
I decided to go with XMR, BTC, LTC and ETH wallets, not that I have funding in them all but they seem like solid contenders to just have.
XMR: 48NZQ5rYpiNEjNtsWKbyniVY3FpJ9kLVA815cxfSMPF5gvjrBiHH9x5JLr3aBYhvKvENCdhrYgzQ9LhBnR5NoinWDCGBzNm
BTC: bc1qeqz2fswpn4hjjy373gyvjgkq63hv7mknwd6cau
LTC: LW4tGWNzYQ21eJ8G2LZaLqroYU67nSNwnY
ETH/USDC/USDT: 0xDd947270bCE2bBB3a3E3eCc4eA5095c14aa9ec58
Finale
Here are the addresses & keys I have settled on, signed with the mentioned GPG key.
here is the origional signed file if you want it~
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
Email: hello@aria.coffee
Website: aria.coffee
Main Git: https://git.aria.coffee/aria
Backup Git(GitHub): https://github.com/BuyMyMojo
Alt Git: https://git.witchcraft.systems/Aria
bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bzrn33tcfgjxnsanvg6py3xn
bsky alt (pds.witchcraft.systems): https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:valun42etpm73we7bgyh64ge
PGP fingerprint: 7EBD 3E0C 7D3D 5C7D 5CA8 A03F 4977 6EAC 872B 884B
PGP Key: https://aria.coffee/static/keys/49776EAC872B884B_public.asc
PGP Keyservers: https://keyserver.ubuntu.com & https://keys.openpgp.org
SSH key: ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIBi5QCHIPTT6Uvq2SLxWUKxcN7RgdtrgJxVs2muVUbqe
Crypto Wallets:
XMR: 48NZQ5rYpiNEjNtsWKbyniVY3FpJ9kLVA815cxfSMPF5gvjrBiHH9x5JLr3aBYhvKvENCdhrYgzQ9LhBnR5NoinWDCGBzNm
BTC: bc1qeqz2fswpn4hjjy373gyvjgkq63hv7mknwd6cau
LTC: LW4tGWNzYQ21eJ8G2LZaLqroYU67nSNwnY
ETH/USDC/USDT: 0xDd947270bCE2bBB3a3E3eCc4eA5095c14aa9ec58
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
iHUEARYKAB0WIQTnt7jSDIdTwHf5sXEZq3qkYrirOwUCaCIXOQAKCRAZq3qkYrir
OyZvAQDPFtFOpgFumJBjL5AuwBv2ezxBu//WmQcwMIY6NDReewEAq6i+Q0GOC8FI
1lqnI9uxr10FIGSemJ4FbUmve6GrWgE=
=J+Ky
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----