Implications of using insecure memory

[shatadal at vfemail.net]

Hi,

I am a new user of gnupg. I use gnupg on my windows laptop and linux desktop.
Thie first time I tried to run gpg on linux as a user I got the insecure memory
warning:

"gpg: WARNING: using insecure memory!"

On reading the faq I read

"On some systems (e.g., Windows) GnuPG does not lock memory pages and older
GnuPG versions (<=1.0.4) issue the warning:

gpg: Please note that you don't have secure memory

This warning can't be switched off by the above option because it was thought to
be too serious an issue. However, it confused users too much, so the warning
was eventually removed"

As a new user I want to know what are the implications of using gpg with
insecure memory in windows and linux, how serious are they and what steps can I
take to improve security? Does insecure memory mean that I should not use gpg
on sych systems?

Thanks,

Shatadal.

-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through Virus Free Email
http://www.vfemail.net