RSA 4096 ridiculous?

[Henry Hertz Hobbit]

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Werner Koch <wk at gnupg.org> wrote:

<snip>

> The sign operation is of course far slower: A single sign operation
> takes 0.28 seconds on my 1500Mhz Pentium M.  Given that this is the same
> time as for a decrypt operation, this will be noticable if you receive a
> mail encrypted to several hidden keys (--throw-keyid) and you need to do
> trial decryptions.

<SNIP>

First, thanks for the stats.  What may be suitable for me may be
totally impractical for somebody sending backup files that are
signed and encrypted on the sending machine, then sent across a
network where they are automatically verified by the receiving
machine.  At least now people have some hard numbers to make
reasonable decisions for keys that meet their own needs.  THANK
YOU!

PLEASE DEFINE NOTICEABLE!  If it is still only 0.xx ... 2 seconds for
your stated conditions which is multiple users with the sender using
- --throw-keyid (which I don't use) that is acceptable to me. I wait
much longer than that for the POP server to start giving me the files
anyway.  Also, even though I type extremely fast my pass-phrases are
inordinately long and rather complex which requires a fair amount of
time for me to type them.  In other words, it may take me far longer
to type the pass-phrase than it does to decrypt or decrypt + verify
all of the encrypted messages.  The primary purpose for these keys
I am going to create is to sign just a few files only a few times
per week or month anyway.

It appears 4096R isn't as awful as some people thought it was.  And
computers are just going to keep getting faster.  That includes PDAs.

HHH


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