> Alrighty. But doesn't this compromise the layer of security offered by
> the passphrase? What's the point having a passphrase at all, if it's so
> easy to compromise a private key?

You might as well ask, "what's the point of OpenPGP at all, if it's so easy to 
Van Eyck your monitor?"  Or, "if it's so easy to plant a keylogger?"  Or, "if 
it's so easy for someone to whisk me up off the street into a dark van and play 
the bongos on my kneecaps until I tell my secrets?"  Or… the list goes on and 
on.

OpenPGP assumes the endpoints of the communication are secure.  If they're not, 
there's nothing OpenPGP can do to help you make it secure.

If you think this is a problem, then I would observe your microwave oven does a 
really lousy job of keeping your beer cold.  All tools have preconditions: the 
existence of a precondition doesn't mean the tool is broken.  The precondition 
for a microwave oven is, "the food must need heating."  The precondition for 
OpenPGP is, "the endpoints must be secure."

Attachment: smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

_______________________________________________
Gnupg-users mailing list
Gnupg-users@gnupg.org
http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users

Reply via email to