key security

[Jeroen Valcke]

Hello,

I'm new to the list and GnuPG. I have some small (newbie) questions.

1/ What about key security. Do you people all leave your private key on
the harddisk of your machine. On Debian linux that's in the .gnupg
directory. How about putting this whole directory on removable media
(for example diskette) A colleague of mine has his on a remove USB
media. Good idea? reactions? impractical?

2/ To encrypt a message all I need is the recipients public key, right?
Encryption is done solely with the public key of the recipient. My
private key is not used, is this correct?

-Jeroen-
A confused newbie.

-- 
Jeroen Valcke               jeroen@valcke.com