On 19.01.16 19:50, Doug Barton wrote:
> On 01/19/2016 09:16 AM, Patrick Brunschwig wrote:

>> I don't agree to your statement. If you create a key in Enigmail, it
>> is valid for 5 years by default. I consider it good practice to
>> replace a key after this period.
> 
> Why?

(...)

> Meanwhile, I'm concerned that by making expiration dates not only the
> default, but the recommendation, that we're going farther down the road
> of making things more complicated than they need to be for users who are
> not advanced. I'm interested to hear your reasoning on this.

An expiry date on the key is the last resort, if you lose your secret
key AND the revocation certificate. And this is often the case, as one
can easily read in the archives. I was a victim of a missing backup of a
Smartcard key-based myself. I was in luck, that there was an expiry date
set. So, this measure is protecting the users from themselves
respectively their loose practice of key storage.

Apart from that:

Advance in cryptography standards, e.g. new keylengths, better
algorithms: Nobody would regard a 20 year old 512-bit RSA key from old
PGP2.x times as adequate today. Also, a 5-7 years old 1024-bit
DSA/El-Gamal should not be life-extended but replaced instead.

Advance in cryptanalysis, e.g. broken algorithms. This is - up to now -
theoretical, but nobody can know for the future.

Ludwig


Attachment: signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

_______________________________________________
enigmail-users mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe or make changes to your subscription click here:
https://admin.hostpoint.ch/mailman/listinfo/enigmail-users_enigmail.net

Reply via email to