3 ms·

> For the ECDSA algorithm, it should be 521. Not that I'm discouraging people to use stronger security, by P-256 is perfectly safe. If you can wait an extra se

> For the ECDSA algorithm, it should be 521. Not that I'm discouraging people to use stronger security, by P-256 is perfectly safe. If you can wait an extra second or two for some connect operations, use P-521 or ED25519. Honestly, I wish PGP was widely accepted. My "persistent" identity has a very long key, and I create "A" (auth) keys that expire. GPG has an SSH agent it's quite beautiful. SSH keys by themselves do all of this key management and rotation by hand and I find it quite silly.

nousermane 5y ago
> P-256 [or] wait an extra second [...] use P-521 or ED25519 Huh? I was under impression that any of those 3 take only a few milliseconds to compute, unlike classic RSA/DSA: $ for i in \ > "-t ecdsa -b 256" \ > "-t ecdsa -b 521" \ > "-t ed25519"; do > echo -n "$i " > (time for j in {1..1000}; do > rm -f deleteme > ssh-keygen $i -N "" -f deleteme > done) 2>&1 | grep user > done -t ecdsa -b 256 user 0m1.887s -t ecdsa -b 521 user 0m2.172s -t ed25519 user 0m3.382s
- upofadown 5y ago
  I don't think they were talking about key generation. Dunno where they were getting the extra second from.
- exabrial 5y ago
  It's the connect operations I was referring to. For me, depending on the system I'm connecting to, there can be 1s-2s longer connection delay depending on a lot of factors like network latency, bandwidth, and target system computational power
sascha_sl 5y ago
PGP is not widely accepted because keeping persistent keys is not a skill the average person in IT, let alone generally has. It is also very hard to fix errors. Using subkeys without the certify key has always been a bit of a hack. GPG doesn't even have a nice command to pull out the C key from your keychain and save it somewhere else. FIDO2 keys for SSH are much better for the average person.
- upofadown 5y ago
  >Using subkeys without the certify key has always been a bit of a hack. I am not sure what is meant by this. Standalone subkeys are impossible. I think this might be a reference to the case where you store the private key for the certify key somewhere safer than the rest. Which, BTW, IMO, is something very few people need to do, although it seems to have become somewhat of a fad.
  - sascha_sl 5y ago
    When I say key, I'm obviously talking about the private key. It honestly seems like the only reason you'd want to rotate subkeys or have distinct ones for different devices. Otherwise you're going to be stuck with at least one perpetual key anyway. It makes GPG somewhat more usable after you're done issing subkeys on your super secure airgapped workstation, because now losing a key/machine isn't a death sentence to your perpetual forever-lived identity. But then again, it's not like you can't reply to a PGP encrypted message with "sorry i lost my keys new fingerprint is x, please use that one" and most people will just do that.
    - upofadown 5y ago
      The way I look at is is that the chance of a PGP key compromise over someone's lifetime is so close to zero as to not matter. Rebuilding your reputation is at the most just inconvenient. Redemption certificates actually work with PGP so you wouldn't have to worry about old identities hanging around.
aborsy 5y ago
What keys you use for your persistent identity?
simpleguitar 5y ago
> Honestly, I wish PGP was widely accepted. I wish the opposite. I wish PGP would go away. Web of trust model of keys simply doesn't work. One key forever doesn't work. SSH keys work great without "all of this key management and rotation by hand" if you just use ssh certificates.

nousermane 5y ago

> P-256 [or] wait an extra second [...] use P-521 or ED25519 Huh? I was under impression that any of those 3 take only a few milliseconds to compute, unlike classic RSA/DSA: $ for i in \ > "-t ecdsa -b 256" \ > "-t ecdsa -b 521" \ > "-t ed25519"; do > echo -n "$i " > (time for j in {1..1000}; do > rm -f deleteme > ssh-keygen $i -N "" -f deleteme > done) 2>&1 | grep user > done -t ecdsa -b 256 user 0m1.887s -t ecdsa -b 521 user 0m2.172s -t ed25519 user 0m3.382s

upofadown 5y ago
I don't think they were talking about key generation. Dunno where they were getting the extra second from.
exabrial 5y ago
It's the connect operations I was referring to. For me, depending on the system I'm connecting to, there can be 1s-2s longer connection delay depending on a lot of factors like network latency, bandwidth, and target system computational power

sascha_sl 5y ago

PGP is not widely accepted because keeping persistent keys is not a skill the average person in IT, let alone generally has. It is also very hard to fix errors. Using subkeys without the certify key has always been a bit of a hack. GPG doesn't even have a nice command to pull out the C key from your keychain and save it somewhere else. FIDO2 keys for SSH are much better for the average person.

upofadown 5y ago
>Using subkeys without the certify key has always been a bit of a hack. I am not sure what is meant by this. Standalone subkeys are impossible. I think this might be a reference to the case where you store the private key for the certify key somewhere safer than the rest. Which, BTW, IMO, is something very few people need to do, although it seems to have become somewhat of a fad.
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  When I say key, I'm obviously talking about the private key. It honestly seems like the only reason you'd want to rotate subkeys or have distinct ones for different devices. Otherwise you're going to be stuck with at least one perpetual key anyway. It makes GPG somewhat more usable after you're done issing subkeys on your super secure airgapped workstation, because now losing a key/machine isn't a death sentence to your perpetual forever-lived identity. But then again, it's not like you can't reply to a PGP encrypted message with "sorry i lost my keys new fingerprint is x, please use that one" and most people will just do that.
  - upofadown 5y ago
    The way I look at is is that the chance of a PGP key compromise over someone's lifetime is so close to zero as to not matter. Rebuilding your reputation is at the most just inconvenient. Redemption certificates actually work with PGP so you wouldn't have to worry about old identities hanging around.

aborsy 5y ago

What keys you use for your persistent identity?

simpleguitar 5y ago

> Honestly, I wish PGP was widely accepted. I wish the opposite. I wish PGP would go away. Web of trust model of keys simply doesn't work. One key forever doesn't work. SSH keys work great without "all of this key management and rotation by hand" if you just use ssh certificates.