2 ms·
> if I lost those keys I'd lose all my messages? Not neccessarily, that just happens with bad implementations (i.e. most of them, sigh). If you get a confiden
by jcynix 4y ago
> if I lost those keys I'd lose all my messages?
Not neccessarily, that just happens with bad implementations (i.e. most of them, sigh).
If you get a confidential letter in the physicsl world, you open it, read it, and then store it in a safe,.or a locked drawer, correct?
The software world chose to "re-seal" the letter in its envelope again instead. So if you loose your key, you loose access to the letter. The proper way to implement this would be to store the decrypted contents in the software equivalent of a lockable drawer, e.g. an encryped disk, folder or whatever. Which could (and should) have sensible fallbacks to retrieve its content.
- mort96 4y agoMost people don't have encrypted drives with fallbacks to retrieve its contents (whatever that means).
- jcynix 4y agoNot having encrypted drives is some kind of misfeature nowadays, especially for mobile devices. Fallbacks can be key escrow (i.e. put a printout or a physical key into a sealed envelope and deposit it at a family member, friend, or notary), and backups, encrypted with a different (or more than one) key. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Unified_Key_Setup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Unified_Key_Setup for example allows the use of multiple keys, so a backup could use the same (primary) key as your drive and some secondary key(s) to access the backup if the primary key is lost somehow. As I mentioned in another comment here, keys should have been physical features for a long time, but hardware vendors would had to standardize on a general implementation and as we know, they all like to "standardize" on exactly their way of doing things.