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Somewhat offtopic, but I'd love something like gnupg to support deterministic key generation, similar to what BIP39 did for crypto. I currently generate keys on

by xur17 8y ago

Somewhat offtopic, but I'd love something like gnupg to support deterministic key generation, similar to what BIP39 did for crypto. I currently generate keys on an offline computer, back them up to a usb driver, and the copy the keys to yubikeys. It works, but it's a PITA, and I'm always worried that I'll lose my backups despite going through a lot of effort to keep them. Deterministic key generation is one thing crypto has gotten right.

shittyadmin 8y ago
It's pretty handy, but doing it for RSA and other crypto systems which rely on large primes is much harder than doing it for crypto systems which can basically use random numbers with a few safety checks just due to the nature of key derivation functions. It is possible though, I seem to remember seeing a paper on it a while back and it should be entirely achievable to do something simple like seed the rng you use for generating RSA keys with an explicit value like that. For basic signing and verifying purposes I believe Electrum and a few other clients actually include functionality for this which could be used as an alternative to PGP.
- Leace 8y ago
  For the record GnuPG supports ed25519 keys for some time so there is no need to use RSA.
LeoPanthera 8y ago
"crypto" is not short for "cryptocurrency", which is what I assume you mean. For many people it is short for "cryptography", and if read as such, makes your comment very confusing.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  It's short for both at this point. The cryptography community doesn't get to dictate the meaning of ambiguous abbreviations, despite their frustrations. I agree that its confusing in context, though.
  - SahAssar 8y ago
    In this context it'd be more prudent to use the full "cryptocurrency" though, and not use the "crypto" shortening at all.
- xur17 8y ago
  Apologies - in this context cryptocurrencies would definitely make more sense.

by xur17 8y ago

shittyadmin 8y ago

It's pretty handy, but doing it for RSA and other crypto systems which rely on large primes is much harder than doing it for crypto systems which can basically use random numbers with a few safety checks just due to the nature of key derivation functions. It is possible though, I seem to remember seeing a paper on it a while back and it should be entirely achievable to do something simple like seed the rng you use for generating RSA keys with an explicit value like that. For basic signing and verifying purposes I believe Electrum and a few other clients actually include functionality for this which could be used as an alternative to PGP.

Leace 8y ago
For the record GnuPG supports ed25519 keys for some time so there is no need to use RSA.

LeoPanthera 8y ago

"crypto" is not short for "cryptocurrency", which is what I assume you mean. For many people it is short for "cryptography", and if read as such, makes your comment very confusing.

barbecue_sauce 8y ago
It's short for both at this point. The cryptography community doesn't get to dictate the meaning of ambiguous abbreviations, despite their frustrations. I agree that its confusing in context, though.
- SahAssar 8y ago
  In this context it'd be more prudent to use the full "cryptocurrency" though, and not use the "crypto" shortening at all.
xur17 8y ago
Apologies - in this context cryptocurrencies would definitely make more sense.