how gpg works...

[kevin lyda]

i sent the following to a friend and am trying to see if i understand
it correctly:

> > my understanding of pgp encryption is as follows:
> >
> > 1. choose a random key
> > 2. using public key encryption, encrypt the key to cypher_text_key
> > 3. write out write keyid and cypher_text_key
> > 4. encrypt message using some symetric algorithm (idea or whatever)
> >    to cypher_text_msg
> > 5. write out cypher_text_msg
> >
> > so in the case of multiple recipients you just do steps 2 and 3
> > multiple times.  i think this is just a side effect of the coice to
> > use symetric encryption for the message - this is done because symetric
> > encryption/decryption is much, much faster then public key encryption
> > or decryption.

so the more recipients there are, the bigger the message - but only for
multiple keyblocks.

kevin