pgp export private key with password

[David Shaw]

On Jan 27, 2014, at 3:26 PM, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:

>>> "David" == David Shaw <dshaw at jabberwocky.com> writes:
> 
>> On Jan 27, 2014, at 3:02 PM, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
>>> Hello
>>> 
>>> I just tried out iPGmail a app for the iPhone which supports
>>> pgp. However I want to import my private key and here the trouble
>>> starts. For some reason iPGmail only supports private keys in armor
>>> format which are password protected.
>>> 
>>> But 
>>> gpg --export-secret-keys --passphrase hallo --armor > oub2.asc
>>> 
>>> Did not really add a passphrase, since I could import oub2.asc as a
>>> different user, without being asked the password.
> 
>> I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do.
>> --export-secret-keys doesn't add or remove a passphrase.  If the key
>> has a passphrase, the exported one still does.  If the key has no
>> passphrase, neither does the exported one.
> 
> Right there is a misunderstanding. What you say is of course correct 
> so during exportation and importation no password is asked, however when
> I want to *use* the key then I must provide the password.
> 
> However it seems that the application expects for some reason another a
> password during the import process.

Interesting.  I wonder why it does that - perhaps it stores the key unencrypted internally?  What happens if you provide your regular key passphrase to the app on import?

David