Brian Minton wrote:
> On 9/17/19 12:59 PM, Stefan Claas via Gnupg-users wrote:
> > Unfortunately I am no programmer but I was thinking about the following:
> > I assume that in order to decrypt a message the secret key data must be
> > unlocked and loaded for a very short time into the computers RAM, in order
> > to perform the decryption, or am I wrong with my assumption?
>
>
> No, the decryption (of the message's session key) is performed entirely
> within the smart card, using the smart card's internal processor. The
> session key is then in copied to the computer's main memory to perform
> AES or whatever symmetrical encryption the message is encrypted with.
> The smart card is actually as a separate computer that performs basic
> encryption on the user's behalf, while making it as difficult as
> possible to access the private keys.
Thank you too, much appreciated!
Regards
Stefan
--
box: 4a64758de9e8ceded2c481ee526440687fe2f3a828e3a813f87753ad30847b56
certified OpenPGP key blocks available on keybase.io/stefan_claas
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