> As to your enigmail essay, point 1, would you go that far that > keeping keys on hard disk is unsafe and using a smart card is a > must?
For many users, smart cards are a good idea. (I've got one myself.) But for just as many users, smart cards are inconvenient and overkill. Frankly, they have awful usability, just terrible. When I receive an email message encrypted to my smart card key, finding the smart card is easy -- it's in my wallet -- but finding the smart card *reader* is the sort of thing that leads me to crazed conspiracy theories. Is the reader attached to my laptop? Did I leave it at the office? Did I kick it under the sofa? Did the space aliens from Zarbnulax take it? The upshot of it is that whenever I want to decrypt messages sent to my smart card, in the best case scenario (I remember where the reader is and it's within a few meters of my desk) it takes me 30-45 seconds to read the message. In the worst-case scenario, I'm in Valencia, Spain, and my reader is in Washington, D.C., and there's no way I'm reading this traffic until I get home. (And in case you're wondering, yes, that really happened to me.) If email crypto makes it hard to read email, few people will adopt the technology. We want technologies that make our lives easier, not harder. Smart cards, although a really good idea in certain environments, make crypto harder in a lot of environments. I'm not sure the (marginal) additional security from using a smart card is worth the (very real) usability expense. Is it unsafe to keep your keys on your hard disk? Dunno. Depends a lot on your situation. Is using a smart card a must? Dunno. Depends a lot on your situation. Hope this helps. :)
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