Sub Keys versus Session Keys

[Gerd Ewald]

Hello David,

  
On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 16:58:42 -0000 GMT your local time,
which was 20.03.2002, 17:58 (GMT+0100) where I live, you wrote:

[...]

> Is this a difference between PGP and GnuPG, or due to using ElGamal instead
> of RSA, or what ?

[...]

Not at all. The session key is needed for encrypting the message using
one of the symmetric algorithms (CAST, 3DES, Rijndael or whatever...).
This key should _not_ be used again (this is what good cryptographers
teach).

RSA or any other asymmetric algorithm is used to encrypt the session
key with the public key of the recipient.

-- 
Best regards,
 Gerd 
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