Why sign as well as encrypt files stored on untrusted drives?

[Jerome Baum]

>> Have you considered a separate key for the signature?
>
> I use a separate signing key anyway, for all my signatures. How would using a
> separate key help here?... I'd still need to give my passphrase somehow.

You mentioned not wanting to keep the passphrase in gpg-agent. That
problem might disappear with a separate key.

On the manifest file, if you're hashing the encrypted files then it's
really useless (the attacker can just re-hash and re-encrypt for the
manifest file). However, it can still be useful -- if you sign only
the manifest file, you only have to enter your passphrase once, and
you can still verify a given file.

(Watch out though: You have to make sure all the files are authentic
before you hash them -- e.g. by checking the old hashes -- but what
happens if I replace a file just after you've verified it but before
you're about to re-hash it? Kind of like a bait-and-switch.)

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Jerome Baum

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