Wei Wu [H] wrote: > Thanks. > > Well, my ultimate goal is to encrypt data, but I don't want to use > passphrase to do it as I believe it is not secure enough. >
basically, a key is a asymmetric cypher used to protect the 'passprase' used in a symmetric cypher. So you can use the 'raw' symmetric cypher (and think up the password yourself), or let gpg generate some random bits as a password and encrypt the password using a public key. It's either one of those two. I know of no alternatives, I don't believe any alternatives are invented (but I might be wrong). So if you don't fee symmetric cyphers to be strong enough, you have a problem, because every pgp message is encrypted using one. Even when using keys you'll need a passphrase, and as long as you protect it carefully, you'll be ok either way. > So my questions are: > > 1. How to create a symmetric key or cipher? With that, I may use another > tool to encrypt/decrypt. > > 2. Can gpg be used to do key based encryption? Not passphrase based. > > Regards, > WW > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of David Shaw > Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 3:40 PM > To: gnupg-users@gnupg.org > Subject: Re: how to create a symmetric cipher > > On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 01:52:31PM -0600, Wei Wu [H] wrote: >> Hi there, >> >> I want to create a symmetric cipher such as AES to encrypt some data, and >> think gpg (GnuPG Version 1.4.2.1) may do this. But I found it gives only >> three options, none is symmetric. I would appreciate if anyone can point > me >> to another or way to do it? > > I'm a bit confused as to what you are asking, but if the question is > "how do I encrypt data using a symmetric cipher?", then the answer is > "gpg --symmetric (thefile)" > > David > > _______________________________________________ > Gnupg-users mailing list > Gnupg-users@gnupg.org > http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gnupg-users mailing list > Gnupg-users@gnupg.org > http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Remco Post SARA - Reken- en Netwerkdiensten http://www.sara.nl High Performance Computing Tel. +31 20 592 3000 Fax. +31 20 668 3167 PGP Key fingerprint = 6367 DFE9 5CBC 0737 7D16 B3F6 048A 02BF DC93 94EC "I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course - the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end." -- Douglas Adams _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
