A .gpg file is an encrypted file created using GnuPG (GPG), the GNU Privacy Guard.

example:

Step 1. Create a sample secret file
$> echo "This is my root token: s.ABC123XYZ" > secret.txt
$> cat secret.txt
This is my root token: s.ABC123XYZ

Step 2. Create a GPG key pair (only once)
$> gpg --full-generate-key
Then follow the prompts…. and set email and password…

Step 3. Encrypt the file
$> gpg --encrypt --recipient omid@example.com secret.txt
This creates a new file: secret.txt.gpg

$> cat secret.txt.gpg
You’ll see garbage, binary data (that’s encrypted).

Step 4. Delete the original (optional, for safety)
$> shred -u secret.txt
(shred overwrites and deletes it securely)


Step 5. Decrypt when needed
$> gpg --output secret.txt --decrypt secret.txt.gpg
It will: 1) Ask for your GPG key passphrase 2) Restore the original plaintext file

For those interested in behavioural aspects of system design, see this article: https://www.the-scientist.com/universe-25-experiment-69941

The ethologist John Calhoun, in his famous “Universe 25” experiments, created a “utopia” for mice: limitless food, water, and shelter, with no predators or disease. Yet as the population grew, their social order collapsed. Mothers abandoned their young; males became either hyper-aggressive or apathetic; eventually, the population went extinct. Calhoun called this the behavioral sink -- a metaphor for the collapse of order in systems that grow too crowded, too connected, and too unstructured.

In the age of multi-agent AI, large-scale federated learning, and autonomous system orchestration, we risk similar collapse not biologically, but architecturally and behaviorally.