what is the use of signing keys?

[Ingo Klöcker]

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On Monday 15 October 2001 17:14, Owen Blacker wrote:
> Ingo Klöcker wrote (2001-10-14 T 20:03 +0200):
> > Why didn't you simply remove the encryption sub key after key
> > creation?
>
> Makes a point.  Seeing it revoked at N seconds after creation is more
> provable than it not being there, I'd guess.

Only for stupid people because you could have easily added another 
encryption subkey and then removed this subkey when the police broke 
into your house. ;-)

> > And why didn't you simply generate a DSA (sign only) key in the
> > first place instead of a DSA/ElGamal key?
>
> Because the key was generated in PGP under Windows 2000 (which
> doesn't, to my knowledge, provide such an option), as I find that key
> generation is rather slow under the specific configuration of GnuPG
> under FreeBSD 4.4-PRERELEASE to which I have access.
>
> I seem to recall that Werner has mentioned that the speed of GnuPG is
> something on which he is working...

He improved the speed of trust checking. AFAIK the key generation is 
still the same. If it's slow then I guess /dev/random is the culprit. 
Maybe this is slow on FreeBSD.

Regards,
Ingo
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