Re: PGP scripting...

From: Valdis.Kletnieksat_private
Date: Fri Jan 24 2003 - 15:45:38 PST

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    On Fri, 24 Jan 2003 08:04:41 +0100, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Andre_Mari=EBn?= said:
    > It may be just me, but I am getting confused.
    > If we keep both private and public key secret,
    > why not use plain old symmetric cryptography?
    
    If the front-end box is compromised, the attacker holds all the keys that
    are active on that box.  If you're using symmetric crypto, the attacker
    can easily decrypt the data (for instance, if he finds it left lying around
    on the disk, or taps the communication channel, etc).  if you use some
    asymmetric scheme, they can't use the key they have gotten to decrypt.
    
    
    



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