PGPcompatible

PGPcompatible refers to software, data formats, or implementations that conform to the OpenPGP standard, enabling interoperability between different PGP-like tools. In practice, PGP-compatible systems can encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify data using common OpenPGP procedures, and can import and export keys in compatible keyring formats. This compatibility allows messages or files encrypted with one OpenPGP-compliant tool to be decrypted or signed by another.

OpenPGP is the non-proprietary specification that governs the structure of keys, signatures, and encrypted data packets used by PGP-compatible software. It covers a range of elements, including public and secret keys, digital signatures, encryption packets, and optional features such as compression and ASCII armor. Implementations such as GnuPG, Mailvelope, and various commercial PGP tools aim to adhere to the OpenPGP standard, ensuring cross-compatibility, though exact feature support can vary by version or product.

In practice, PGP-compatible technologies emphasize key management (generation, import/export, signing, revocation), public-key encryption, and digital signatures. Users can typically create and manage keyrings, exchange public keys, encrypt data for specific recipients, and verify signatures from others. Support for algorithms (such as RSA and newer elliptic-curve options) and optional features like MDCs or compression may affect compatibility between older and newer implementations.

Limitations exist: some legacy PGP versions or vendor-specific extensions may not fully align with modern OpenPGP behavior, and deprecated or weak algorithms should be avoided for security reasons. Overall, PGPcompatibility centers on adherence to OpenPGP data formats and interoperable cryptographic operations across diverse tools.