I don't know how it is in other countries. We recently wondered what the right thing to do is and the Citystate of Berlin has an FAQ on recycling: https://www.bsr.de/die-top-13-mullmythen-26874.php which makes some things explicit:
(It is in German, but deepl translated the relevant section)
Do empty bottles and packaging have to be washed out?
No. Because the packaging is rinsed out in the recycling process, when the sorted plastics are shredded. It is only important that all packaging is emptied of residues [ed. The translation misses tmthat they mean large residue or levtover amounts], is not stacked and the lid is removed.
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Sufficient knowledge of German
You must have an adequate command of the German language (level B 1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).
If you were in possession of either a residence permit or a residence authorisation on 31/12/2004, you only have to demonstrate basic knowledge of the German language (level A 1) to be granted a permanent settlement permit.
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In practice the staff giving interviewing you have leeway to assess your German level on the spot, but applying without demonstrated adequate German levels could lead to wasting ones time.
In Germany you have a probationary period of 6 months where both sides can give notice of 2 weeks without having to give a reason. The probationary period is really there to make sure that you fit the organization and that the organization fits you.
It is not usual that people don't make it through the probationary period, but it happens. If you know 5 months into a job that it is not for you and won't work out, then search for something that does. When asked why the time at X was so short, tell the hiring manager why. A place that dings you based on your honest assessment is not a place where you will want to work anyway.
The better solution to these kind of problems is having a backup concept with an implementation and regular testing of backups.
The encryption exposed a problem with your disks or system in general. Depending on what the problem was, the problem is still there but you are not seeing it. Now you have a possible problem and unencrypted files.
In practice you can use all three versions of GnuPG on three different devices without a particular difference. One problem you might see is if you are using the newer experimental curve-based algorithms on a computer running GnuPG 1.4 and you get blocked, but you really ought not to do that anyway.
As for the downgrading issue:
It used to be you could just copy your .gnupg directory from computer to computer to computer and that's what constituted migrating your PGP keys.
This was also true for moving frmo GnuPG 1.4 to GnuPG 2.x. If you are starting with a new GnuPG keystore from 2.1 you can't just copy .gnupg and use it in a GnuPG 1.4 system, you have to export your public keys, your private keys, and your trustdb (although I am iffy on what this does) and import them on the systems where you are running GnuPG 1.4 or 2.0
I am unaware of any 3rd party software directly accessing the GnuPG keystore, but that doesn't say much.
I don't know where people would run three versions at the same time. The information from the GnuPG project is clear: You can run GnuPG 1.x and GnuPG 2.x at the same time, but you should not have GnuPG 2.0 and GnuPG 2.1 installed at the same time, as bad things might happen.
What 3rd party software is using the keystorage mechanisms directly? Do you mean how information is output from GnuPG?
It sounds like the situation you are describing is the keystore, which has changed formats. GnuPG 2.1, as far as I can remember, will oll use the older versions keystore, but you are correct, once you have a 2.1 keystore it can't be used by GnuPG 2.0 and 1.x.
It's a tough call for the GnuPG developers and something distributions should help with. On one hand there is immense pressure to improve GnuPG, on the other hand, you have many actors who kick GnuPG around when it makes any deviation.
I would say defaulting to GnuPG 1.x is a bug and new releases of Linux, Homebrew, etc., should use GnuPG 2.0 at the very least, but better yet, use GnuPG 2.1 which has many of the things that people complain about fixed or in process of being fixed.
Things to know about keyservers such as SKS: There is no way to remove keys or a way to really delete information. Uploading to know server will propagate that information to all SKS servers in the network over time.
Getting a copy of "The Debian Administrator's Handbook" also helps support Raphaël Hertzog and Roland Mas keep doing good work.
I purchased a recent copy of the book (covering Debian 8), and while there are things I'd like more details about, I find it a good resource to have on hand.
Some ideas for useful addons to existing projects, keeping in mind I am not sure what your focus as a front-end developer is:
Gnu Privacy Assistant https://www.gnupg.org/related_software/gpa/index.html is a GnuPG frontend written in GTK. The software works well and does nice things like file encryption, taking a piece of text and outputting it encrypted.
The GUI badly needs improvement. I'd be happy to point out several problems.
I also don't believe GPA is available in platforms like Windows and macOS.
Kleopatra is a GnuPG and S/MIME frontend written in Qt (KDE libraries). It is maintained and available on Windows (through GPG4Win) but is still "computer power user"-centric and could also use user interaction love.
On a side note: One method that Enigmail uses to import PGP certificate is the ability to get a valid PGP certificate from a URL. Adding that functionality to GPA and Kleopatra would be nice wins.
All three frontends, Enigmail, Kleopatra, or GnuPG would do well to have a graphical or screen-based export of public keys. Something like a QR-code export of a minimal PGP public key would be nice for importing via smartphones.
You are welcome. I tried finding a way to contact you from the medium article that didn't require signing up to or signing into something. I gave up after trying to comment on the article directly and only finding Twitter and Facebook links.
I'm about to update some tutorials that depend on GnuPG working on 64bit Windows and was worried that I'd need to modify my plans. Your particle made me take another look at the documentation and to re-check some assumptions. Thank you.
A friend saw me entering my longish, non-trivial passphrase into my android phone and commented that I must not have many friends if I have to enter this passphrase every time to use my phone.
For a moment I was torn between being proud in my passphrase and sad at my lack of friends.
While there are pain points when it comes to hosting your own mail, it isn't nearly as difficult as you make it.
It gets more difficult if you are providing a service that has to have uptime guarantees or are providing mail to many users but if you take the time to learn and educate yourself on current standards, hosting your own mail for fun and for profit is a doable thing that more developers and admins should do.
We are at a time when we actually have relatively easy to use software to managing mail servers, so us it.
For what it is worth, I have not had problems with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, or domains that use their services whether it comes to sending or receiving. Sometimes a server is stuck in an SPAM prevention queue or I might have to whitelist a particularly silly server, but that doesn't happen very often.
(It is in German, but deepl translated the relevant section)
Do empty bottles and packaging have to be washed out?
No. Because the packaging is rinsed out in the recycling process, when the sorted plastics are shredded. It is only important that all packaging is emptied of residues [ed. The translation misses tmthat they mean large residue or levtover amounts], is not stacked and the lid is removed.