GPF Crypto Stick vs OpenPGP Card

Łukasz Stelmach lukasz.stelmach at iem.pw.edu.pl
Mon Dec 6 23:27:16 CET 2010


Andre Amorim <andre at amorim.me> writes:

> Sorry, I didn't want get too far from the subject of the topic. But
> the previous post raised a doubt on top of my head. Can anybody
> explain (if it's not too much technical) why people say that once a
> key is generated inside the smartcard it is impossible to that key get
> out of it

As far as I know about crypto smartcards (not only OpenPGP on) they have
software onboard that can generate a key pair but there is virtually no
code that can send it outside of the card.

> (except of course the Command> generate
> Make off-card backup of encryption key? (Y/n)?)

I know: secret keys may be uploaded to a card but not downloaded from
it. I think (read speculate): the above question is asked when you
generate a key pair on the PC and upload it to a card.

-- 
Miłego dnia,
Łukasz Stelmach




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