> It depends on what you mean by a "shared key". There is just giving a > copy of the key to multiple people (in which case any one of them can use it), > or there are various key splitting algorithms where a key is broken into a > number of pieces, and a specified subset of those pieces can come > together, reconstruct the key, and do whatever they need to do.
It is the second. > > The OpenPGP standard (which specifies how different implementations can > interoperate) does not really specify shared keys, beyond acknowledging that > they exist. The PGP *implementation* of the standard, has a shared key > feature in the break-the-key-into-multiple-pieces sense. This is what I meant. Does this mean that, if you want to encrypt a file, everybody has to use his/her key? The background of my question is that a company claims that one of their managers has forgotten the key and therefore, they can't decrypt some files. These files contain, of course, some evidence they should produce in a court case. Beside the fact that there seem to exist some ways to reconstruct keys, I ask myself if they didn't need the key to encrypt the files... Best Denise -- NEU: FreePhone - kostenlos mobil telefonieren und surfen! Jetzt informieren: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freephone _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
