PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is a method of encrypting and digitally signing messages to ensure confidentiality and authenticity. It’s widely used by developers, security enthusiasts, and privacy-conscious individuals to protect communications and verify identities.

I mostly use PGP to sign messages and files—kind of like leaving a digital fingerprint saying “Yep, this is really from me.” If someone ever hands you a suspicious-looking file claiming it’s mine, you can use my public key to verify it wasn’t sent by a coffee-fueled imposter. Go ahead, download the key and impress your inner cybersecurity nerd.

If you’d like to verify a file or message I’ve signed—or maybe even send me an encrypted message worthy of a spy movie—you’ll need my PGP public key. It’s essentially the “trust anchor” you’ll use to check whether a signature really came from me, and not some sleep-deprived AI clone.

You can download my public key here. It comes in handy when you want to verify digital signatures I’ve made or encrypt something before sending it my way.

Below, you’ll also find my key fingerprint, which is a short and human-readable way to confirm the key’s authenticity—think of it like the license plate of a digital identity.

# Fingerprint
9F61 4934 931F 3DA4 C13B  14CE 224B B560 9863 4140
# Key ID
0x98634140
# Valid Until
29 May 2027

So, you’ve got a message or file from me and want to make sure it wasn’t tampered with—or worse, sent by an imposter pretending to be me (rude!). This is where PGP signature verification shines.

First, grab my public key (if you haven’t already), import it into your GPG keychain, and then verify the message. Whether it's a clear-signed message or a detached signature file, GPG’s got your back.

Here's how to do it, step by step:

# Step 1: Download my public key (if you haven't already)
wget https://berkealp.net/berkealp-net.asc

# Step 2: Import the key into your local GPG keyring
gpg --import berkealp-net.asc

# Step 3a: To verify a clear-signed message (PGP block is part of the message)
gpg --verify message.txt

# Step 3b: To verify a detached signature (separate .sig file)
gpg --verify message.txt.sig message.txt