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  • From: Calvin Powers <calvin AT cspowers.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] crypto
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:13:31 -0400

Thomas wrote:

I am finally getting around to something that's been on my list for a long time: setting up encryption capability on my computer. I've installed GnuPG and the Enigmail plug-in for Mozilla. I generated a set of keys on a trial run, everything seems to be working as it should. Seems like the end user applications have improved significantly during my period of procrastination.

One question I am mulling over is that of appropriate key size. I wonder if the cryptophiles here could shed a little wisdom on the subject. What's the conventional wisdom these days on key size? 1024? 2048? 1536?

Well, I'm not at all an expert, but I did do some PKI work for my company a few years back, when PKI was gonna be the Next Big Thing. My answer would be that it depends on what you want to do with your keys. If all you want to do is sign your outgoing mail so that your friends can pick out your e-mail from all the spam mail they are getting, then a short key is Just Fine. 1024 bits would do the trick. Likewise, if you just want your friends to be able to encrypt mail to you because it's cool to think that no one else but the two of you knows that you both think Aerosmith sucks, well, 1024 bits is Just fine. We call these "privacy locks" because they are not that strong but strong enough to prevent someone from "accidently" snooping on your e-mail.

On the other hand, if you and you're Bermuda based investment banker are using encryption to exchange the "real" ledger sheet back and forth instead of the one you show the IRS, well, the stronger the better, in theory. But in practice anyone that would want to break into your message would probably do a brute force attack on the underlying bulk encryption so there comes a point of diminishing returns in which the bigger keys don't really buy that much more additional protection.

Just my 2 cents' worth.
Calvin.






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