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At a basic level, the key is just a number, so there's no fundamental reason why it can't be duplicated. However, other responses seem to be leaving out a disc

At a basic level, the key is just a number, so there's no fundamental reason why it can't be duplicated. However, other responses seem to be leaving out a discussion of why one would want to make identical keys in the first place. If you had identical keys, losing one would mean you'd need to revoke permissions of all copies. If the keys are instead unique, then only the lost key needs to be revoked. Copying keys would also imply that the secret information needs to pass between devices, which adds some combination of risk and complexity. If the key doesn't need to support copying, then the secret information could be generated inside, and never leave, the key. It seems better if the permissions granted to unique keys are easy to replicate, rather than the keys themselves.

wahern 8y ago
I agree that multiple unique keys are preferable. But for traditional PKI schemes there's always at least one key (your personal master PGP key, your company SSH/X.509 CA) you want copies of, yet it's precisely the kind of key you absolutely want to keep off the network or within a secure hardware token; more so than authentication keys. There are tokens that permit exporting (aka wrapping) a key for off-device storage or for transferring. If for transferring presumably you specify at key generation time a list of public keys to export to. But I've never used these tokens as the software was just too complex to bother with, proprietary, and poorly supported in the open source ecosystem. In the PGP world the typical advice (for better or worse) I've heard is to archive your master key on a disc and rotate your subkeys occasionally, necessitating brief exposure of your master key. Theoretically you would sign the subkeys from an old, non-networked computer.
sametmax 8y ago
> If you had identical keys, losing one would mean you'd need to revoke permissions of all copies Makes sense. And also it means I can decide it's not part of my threat model and take the easy route. Thanks.

wahern 8y ago

I agree that multiple unique keys are preferable. But for traditional PKI schemes there's always at least one key (your personal master PGP key, your company SSH/X.509 CA) you want copies of, yet it's precisely the kind of key you absolutely want to keep off the network or within a secure hardware token; more so than authentication keys. There are tokens that permit exporting (aka wrapping) a key for off-device storage or for transferring. If for transferring presumably you specify at key generation time a list of public keys to export to. But I've never used these tokens as the software was just too complex to bother with, proprietary, and poorly supported in the open source ecosystem. In the PGP world the typical advice (for better or worse) I've heard is to archive your master key on a disc and rotate your subkeys occasionally, necessitating brief exposure of your master key. Theoretically you would sign the subkeys from an old, non-networked computer.

sametmax 8y ago

> If you had identical keys, losing one would mean you'd need to revoke permissions of all copies Makes sense. And also it means I can decide it's not part of my threat model and take the easy route. Thanks.