I don't really trust CDs or USB keys as a long-term storage medium, and tarsnap keys are kind of long (~5kB). So here's a feature request: let me upload a possibly encrypted key file to tarsnap.com so I can re-download it if necessary, presumably using only my account password to authenticate.
To clarify, here's a concrete proposal: $ tarsnap-upload-key keyfile.key This will generate a random 128-bit key, encrypt the key file against that key, and send the result to tarsnap.com (i.e. somewhere in AWS-land). It will then display that key in some nice form (base64 with no I, l, or 1, for example), so I can print a few copies on paper. Then I can stick those pieces of paper somewhere safe. There are plenty of elaborations possible. For example, tarsnap.com could refuse to let me download the encrypted key unless I can prove I know the key-wrapping key (e.g. by presenting some hash of the key, where that hash is stored along with the key). There could also be a tool that implements basic secret-sharing on the wrapping key, so I could require, say, 2 out of 5 pieces of paper to recover the key. Thoughts? This requires some server-side help to work. --Andy
