3 ms·
I think you should treat it as posting the key itself. In other words, it's probably possible to transform from the randart back to the key (else it wouldn't b
by coldpie 4y ago
I think you should treat it as posting the key itself. In other words, it's probably possible to transform from the randart back to the key (else it wouldn't be unique per key, right?). So for a public key that is intended to be public, yes, it should be fine. For keys which you do not want public, it's probably not a good idea to post it publicly.
- duskwuff 4y agoIt's not even a representation of the public key itself; it's the SHA256 fingerprint of the key. There's no practical way to transform that back into the key -- and, in any case, the server will send that key to any client that connects, so it's not like recovering it from a screenshot accomplishes anything.
- Darkphibre 4y agoI suppose the argument would be that the key search space is reduced. Statistically speaking, you know the weights of certain binary pairs if the image is not evenly distributed. But I'm guessing that it'd only drop the average search space by... two or three powers of two for most keys?
- duskwuff 4y agoAgain: the randomart image is based on a hash of the public key. If you want to know what that key is, all you have to do is ask the server. You don't need to launch a sophisticated, expensive cryptographic attack to obtain it.