Re: [openpgp] Offline key flag

Werner Koch <wk@gnupg.org> Tue, 05 March 2013 16:57 UTC

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From: Werner Koch <wk@gnupg.org>
To: David Shaw <dshaw@jabberwocky.com>
References: <5135BDE6.1070200@fifthhorseman.net> <6F1173CD-290C-4A38-BD80-152C5E553D1F@jabberwocky.com> <87obexlu3e.fsf@vigenere.g10code.de> <D491B5DB-5F6A-4C1C-9474-29EF5571D893@jabberwocky.com>
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Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:53:51 +0100
In-Reply-To: <D491B5DB-5F6A-4C1C-9474-29EF5571D893@jabberwocky.com> (David Shaw's message of "Tue, 5 Mar 2013 11:30:54 -0500")
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Cc: IETF OpenPGP <openpgp@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [openpgp] Offline key flag
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On Tue,  5 Mar 2013 17:30, dshaw@jabberwocky.com said:

> Can you give an example why would someone want to publish that their private key is offline?  I'm not sure I see a use for that.

I have two encryption keys but only one marked as offline.  If someone
wants to send a quick message he would encrypt to the non-offline key.
If he has to tell me something really secret, he would select the
offline key, assuming that I will move the message to a non-networked
box where the offline key is stored.

I am not sure whether this is really useful for most users, but split
and group keys are also somewhat esoteric and not even defined in
OpenPGP.


Salam-Shalom,

   Werner

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