Turns out, building it is the easy part. I failed at generating the key: $ time ./gpg --gen-key  Please select what kind of key you want:  (1) RSA and RSA (default)  (2) DSA and Elgamal  (3) DSA (sign only)  (4) RSA (sign only)  (7) DSA (set your own capabilities)  ( RSA (set your own capabilities) Your selection? 1 RSA keys may be between 1024 and 16384 bits long. What keysize do you want? (2048) 16384 Requested keysize is 16384 bits RSA keys may be between 1024 and 16384 bits long. What keysize do you want for the subkey? (2048) 16384 Requested keysize is 16384 bits Please specify how long the key should be valid.     0 = key does not expire    <n> = key expires in n days    <n>w = key expires in n weeks    <n>m = key expires in n months    <n>y = key expires in n years Key is valid for? (0) Key does not expire at all Is this correct? (y/N) y You need a user ID to identify your key; the software constructs the user ID from the Real Name, Comment and Email Address in this form:   "Heinrich Heine (Der Dichter) <heinrichh@duesseldorf.de>" Real name: astor Email address: astorx@tormail.org Comment: You selected this USER-ID:   "astor <astorx@tormail.org>" Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? o You need a Passphrase to protect your secret key. We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number generator a better chance to gain enough entropy. .................................................................................................+++++ .......+++++ Not enough random bytes available. Please do some other work to give the OS a chance to collect more entropy! (Need 200 more bytes) ..........................................+++++ ...:...............................................................+++++ gpg: out of secure memory while allocating 2048 bytes gpg: (this may be caused by too many secret keys used simultaneously or due to excessive large key sizes) real59m45.623s user52m1.651s sys0m0.164s I just spent an hour mashing on the keyboard, browsing randomly, listening to music, while simultaneously patting my head and rubbing my belly... only to "run out of secure memory".