his public key is 5 monitors high, and her same key is 1 ?

[shmick at riseup.net]

Pete Stephenson:
> On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 2:24 PM, shmick at riseup.net <shmick at riseup.net> wrote:
>> what are the factors involved in creating such discrepancies with folks'
>> public key lengths ?
> 
> As far as I can tell, the two major factors that affect the size of
> public keys are:
> 1. Key length. (That is, a 4096-bit key will be larger than a 2048-bit
> or 1024-bit key.)
> 2. Number of signatures on the key. A brand-new key will be
> considerably shorter than one that has accumulated numerous signatures
> from other people.

that's makes sense; now i understand why Zimmerman's and callas' public
keys are going through the ceiling

as to who michael vario is it remains to be seen !

> 
>> are public, private, and key pairs in general stronger/safer (what ever
>> that may mean) if observing their public keys are many monitors high or
>> have they gone to extreme measures in something in particular ?
> 
> Key length does have an effect on security: 2048-bit keys are larger
> and harder to brute-force than 1024-bit keys. The same applies to 3072
> and 4096-bit keys compared to 2048-bit ones, though there is a point
> of diminishing returns.
>