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How secure is OpenPGP?
OpenPGP is used widely to secure e-mail communications, but its technology can also be applied to FTP. OpenPGP works by using two cryptographic keys to secure files. A Public Key is used to encrypt the file so that only its corresponding Private Key can decrypt it.
Is PGP compromised?
The major pro of PGP encryption is that it is essentially unbreakable. That’s why it is still used by journalists and activists, and why it is often regarded as the best way of improving cloud security. In short, it is essentially impossible for anyone – be they a hacker or even the NSA – to break PGP encryption.
What is an encryption subkey?
A subkey can be used for signing or for encryption. The really useful part of subkeys is that they can be revoked independently of the primary keys, and also stored separately from them. In other words, subkeys are like a separate key pair, but automatically associated with your primary key pair.
When do you create an OpenPGP key you create two subkeys?
When you create an OpenPGP key with GPG (which is the focus of this article), you create two subkeys by default: one for encryption and one for signing. The subkeys discussed in this article are only used for signing. The reason for this is that it is impossible to sensibly employ multiple encryption subkeys.
How to improve the security of your OpenPGP key?
The only sensible thing would be to distribute the public part of every encryption subkey and then anybody encrypting anything to you would need to send you the same message once for each encryption subkey you have created. This could certainly be problematic.
What are the two main uses of OpenPGP?
There are two main uses of OpenPGP: encryption, and signing. When you create an OpenPGP key with GPG (which is the focus of this article), you create two subkeys by default: one for encryption and one for signing. The subkeys discussed in this article are only used for signing.
Why do I need a GPG secret key?
The principal reason is that should you have your GPG secret key loaded on a mobile device and that device is stolen, you will find yourself with a serious problem. If you do not have a backup of your key stored somewhere, you are stuck generating a new key.