diff --git a/pgpverify b/pgpverify
index e703ae4..92b673d 100755
--- a/pgpverify
+++ b/pgpverify
@@ -1,6 +1,13 @@
 #! /usr/bin/perl -w
-# written April 1996, tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
-# Version 1.5
+# written April 1996, tale@isc.org (David C Lawrence)
+# Version 1.6
+#
+# Changes from 1.5 -> 1.6
+# -- handle articles encoded in NNTP format ('.' starting line is doubled,
+#    \r\n at line end) by string NNTP encoding.
+# -- exit 255 with pointer to $HOME or $PGPPATH if pgp can't find key ring.
+#    (probably doesn't match the necessary error message with ViaCrypt PGP)
+# -- failures also report message-id so the article can be looked up to retry.
 #
 # Changes from 1.4 -> 1.5
 # -- force English lanugage for 'Good signature from user' by passing
@@ -34,7 +41,12 @@ $0 =~ s(^.*/)();                # trim /path/to/prog to prog
 # this is, by design, case-sensitive with regards to the headers it checks.
 # it's also insistent about the colon-space rule.
 while (<>) {
-  chop;
+  # if a header line ends with \r\n, this article is in the encoding
+  # it would be in during an NNTP session.  some article storage
+  # managers keep them this way for efficiency.
+  $nntp_format = /\r\n$/ if $. == 1;
+  s/\r?\n$//;
+
   last if /^$/;
   if (/^(\S+):[ \t](.+)/) {
     ($label, $value) = ($1, $2);
@@ -81,6 +93,12 @@ foreach $label (split(",", $signed_headers)) {
 $message .= "\n";               # end of headers
 
 while (<>) {                    # read body lines
+  if ($nntp_format) {
+    # remove NNTP encoding
+    s/^\.\./\./;
+    s/\r\n$/\n/;
+  }
+
   s/^-/- -/;                    # pgp quote ("ASCII armor") dashes
   $message .= $_;               # append to output string
 }
@@ -117,6 +135,8 @@ while (<PGP>) {
     $signer = $+;
   } elsif (/^Bad signature /) {
     $ok = 3;
+  } elsif (/Keyring file '(.*)' does not exist/) {
+    &fail("$0: couldn't access $1.  Bad \$HOME or \$PGPPATH?\n");
   }
 }
 close(PGP) || warn "$0: closing pgp pipe returned status $?\n";
@@ -131,6 +151,8 @@ fail
 {
   unlink($tmp);
   print STDERR $_[0];
+  print STDERR " ... while processing $header{'Message-ID'}\n"
+    if $header{'Message-ID'};
   exit 255;
 }