Sharing/Storing a private key

[Doug Barton]

On 12/15/2013 04:58 AM, Peter Lebbing wrote:
> On 14/12/13 21:14, Leo Gaspard wrote:
>> Maybe if you explained what the limitations of ssss are...?
>
> My guess is the fact that ssss only supports secrets up to 1024 bits; if you
> want to share a larger secret you need to do a hybrid approach where you
> symmetrically encrypt the data and then use secret sharing for the randomly
> chosen encryption key.
>
> If I understand Mindiell's message right, his implementation works for larger
> secrets.
>
> But I don't see why you wouldn't just use ssss and the hybrid approach.

I haven't looked at Mindiell's software, but one argument against what 
you're suggesting is that it's only as secure as the encryption used in 
step 1 of the hybrid approach. The ability to apply SSS to the entire 
secret would be quite valuable, although your concern about entropy use 
is something that should be addressed explicitly.

Doug