Re: [Endymail] Off we go...

[Werner Koch <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, 28 Aug 2014 23:44, [e-mail] said:

> * Easy way to migrate encryption keys into new devices.
>
> * Key recovery mechanisms so people don't loose their mail by accident.

These are closely related.  It is commonly known as backup/restore.
Fortunately we only need to care about the secret key which means we
need to backup 32 bytes plus an identification of 20 or 32 bytes for the
public key.  This can easily be achieved using a QR code.  Print it out
and for restore take a photo of it.  Right, this opens new paths for
local attacks on the secret key but if an attacker already has control
over the local device, we are anyway in game over state.  And it would
be a good start to make that easier.

The current protocols do not allow for an abbreviated backup scheme of
the secret key but it won't not be too complicated to do that.  As long
as we can assume that the public key is really public.  Data protection
rules may be a problem here.

> * Easy key rollover

In case of key compromise or for forward security?  The latter is more
problematic because you need to take the key offline but if you still
want to decrypt old messages (may be just 1 week, 1 month old) there
needs to be an easy way to restore them.

> be solved. But what has happened in the past is that they have been
> shuffled under the mat as 'advanced user problems'.

Yeah.


Salam-Shalom,

   Werner


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