Using GnuPG on shared virtual hosts -

[John Woodman]

Hi, I've just recently joined the GnuPG list and was going to hang
around just a bit before posting, but the last post was so close to some
of my own questions I just have to jump in here! :-)

First, thanks for what looks to be a terrific product.

Like "G Nielson" who just posted, I'm wanting to use GnuPG in a shared
virtual hosting situation(s). In my case, it's to encrypt transaction
info for a small store - both for logging to a file and for sending via
encrypted e-mail to my budding e-commerce merchant.

1) One of my big concerns has to do with the processor time required.
I'm worried that my hosting company may find processing time excessive
and either shut the account down or ask for more money. Has anyone been
using GnuPG in such a shared virtual web hosting situation? Any
suggestions?

2) One thing I noted too, reading the literature, was that ElGamal takes
about 10 times the processing time of the RSA algorithm. I'm concerned
that this in particular could make things difficult for a reasonably
busy online store.

I suppose one could work around this by configuring things to stack up
transactions and only send one e-mail per day to the merchant, but then
you would have to first store the transactions in an unencrypted format
on the server, which sort of defeats the purpose of using encryption --
especially given how easy it seems for hackers to get into online
systems... :-(

In that light, given the much higher security-per-clock-cycle, I was
wondering whether there are plans to incorporate the RSA algorithm as
second option starting in September?

Looking forward to being a part of this list,

John Woodman