Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: F104 on July 06, 2011, 04:19 am
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I see typical PGP keys begin like this:
or
but what about this? Is the PGP that begins like this legit and functioning?
the length or size of the key is much shorter
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So the method of encryption is called PGP, and then there are many brands of products that produce the PGP keys. Each of the Builds underneath the Key Block just tells you which program created that key.
The length of the key is dependent upon how many bits of encryption you use.
That last option of PGP Desktop sounds like a really basic and shitty software, and is not licensed to sell PGP keys, but can still generate a self signed key without a license.
I wouldnt worry too much about it, but at the same time, I dont like shitty software or small keys just in principal... so *shrug* he's smoking the schwag PGP and needs to move up to some dank.
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Your PGP program won't encrypt to an invalid key no matter what, so as long
as your PGP program treats any key as valid to encrypt to, you're ok.
The previous response above that says PGP Desktop is a 'shitty' program not
licensed to sell PGP keys is stupidity of the worst sort. PGP Desktop is
the program that was written by the inventor of PGP, Phil Zimmerman, and
the commercial implementation of it was licensed to PGP Corp, who later
sold it to Symantec who run it as an enterprise encryption solution. The
not-licensed for commercial use means just that, it's a free or
time/feature limited version for personal use only. Nobody needs to be
'licensed to sell PGP keys'.
Note that the comment line after the ---Begin--- line can contain anything
at all, it's ignored for encryption, decryption, signing and verification.
Information about the protocol used is encoded in the first 22 characters
of the key.