On Jun 21, 2012, at 9:00 AM, Sam Smith wrote:

> when running the command: gpg --list-packets <keyname.asc>
> 
> there is an outputted line that reads:  "SHA1 protection"
> 
> I did some looking online and saw that this line stays even when people 
> change their hash algorithm to something else (like SHA2).
> 
> If the "SHA1 protection" is not indicating the use of SHA1 hash, what is it 
> communicating? If a SHA2 hash is being used to mangle the passphrase of the 
> secret key being stored on the disk, why is the line "SHA1 protection" being 
> shown?

It means that the secret key is has (in addition to the passphrase) an internal 
SHA-1 hash to detect tampering.  It's basically a large checksum, used to foil 
attacks that involve modifying the secret key.  It's not related to the hash 
algorithm you use when signing things.

David


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