gpg + smartcard ?s

Kory T talmage at zero.ad.jp
Thu Mar 10 06:51:14 CET 2005


When GPG 1.4 came out a few months ago I noticed smartcard support was 
now officially included.   For the last few months I've been hoping 
good documentation would pop-up on the net to guide me through the 
steps to use a smartcard with GPG.  So far I haven't been able to find 
much.  I would appreciate it if I could get some help getting answers 
for specific questions I have.

 From what I understand GnuPG1.4 can access smartcard readers in two 
ways.  Through gpg built in drivers and through the PC/SC drivers.  Is 
there a list of what drivers are built into gpg? or a list of devices 
that are officially supported by gnupg?

Is it possible to use generic smartcards and not just the OpenPGP card 
from g10?  For example, I want to try and use those 'usb token' size 
smartcards on desktop computers and regular smartcards (pcmcia reader) 
with laptops.  If only the OpenPGP card is supported, what  is so 
special about the OpenPGP card?  Can generic smartcards be programmed 
to be the same as the OpenGPG card?

And the most important questions I have is, does the gpg smartcard 
implementation support 2048~4096 bit keys?  I've only found reference 
to 1024 bit keys.  1024 bit is simply not enough for the paranoid like 
myself.

Forgive me if some of these questions have been answered on the list, 
I'm new to the list and did search through the list archives first ;).  
Any help will be appreciated.  Thanks.

KoryT




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