decrypt : primary key or subkey ?

[Bruno Costacurta]

On Wednesday 06 June 2007 18:01, David SMITH wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 05:14:18PM +0200, Bruno Costacurta wrote:
> > gpg --list-secret-keys -v  0x2E604D51
> > gpg: using PGP trust model
> > gpg: no secret subkey for public subkey 0CC897B5 - ignoring
> > sec   1024D/2E604D51 2006-06-11
> > uid                  Bruno Costacurta <bruno at costacurta.org>
> > uid                  Bruno Costacurta <contract at costacurta.org>
> > uid       [ revoked] pubmb01 <pubmb01 at skynet.be>
> > uid       [ revoked] Bruno Costacurta <cob1 at biz.tiscali.be>
> > uid       [ revoked] pubmb02 <pubmb02 at skynet.be>
> > uid                  Bruno Costacurta <pubmb01 at skynet.be>
> >
> > So I simply do not have a secret for my subkey.
> > How can I add one ?
>
> You can't "add" a secret key to a public one - otherwise, there wouldn't
> be much point to public key cryptography...
>
> You will have generated a secret key when you generated the public key -
> they're generated together.  Somehow you've managed to lose the secret
> key.  You need to look around in the places where you generated/stored
> the key to see if you can find it.  If you can't find it, then I'm
> afraid that you're stuffed - you won't be able to decrypt your encrypted
> information (short of brute-force cracking it).
>
> Sorry for being the bearer of bad news...

Sorry but indeed I have the secret key for 0x2E604D51 and it's valid (I just 
installed my gpg keyrings on a new computer and use it for signing).
The 0CC897B5 is a subkey and was created automatically with 0x2E604D5 creation 
and never ask specific password.

Bye,
Bruno

--
PGP key ID: 0x2e604d51
Key : http://www.costacurta.org/keys/bruno_costacurta_pgp_key.html
Key fingerprint = 713F 7956 9441 7DEF 58ED  1951 7E07 569B 2E60 4D51
--
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