symmetric email encryption

[Hauke Laging]

Am Fr 18.07.2014, 22:51:13 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:
> > Are symmetric keys more probable to be compromised than asymmetric
> > ones?
> Immensely.  An asymmetric key is a secret held by one person; a
> symmetric key is a secret shared by two or more.

A factor of two is "immense" to you...?

Furthermore it seems to me that you ignore the fact that in a typical 
scenario you need only one of the asymmetric keys in order to be able to 
read the whole communication between two (or even more as long as all 
are part of it) people as the default behaviour is to encrypt for the 
recipient's key and also for the sender's key. Thus every mail can be 
read by each of the private keys.


Hauke
-- 
Crypto für alle: http://www.openpgp-schulungen.de/fuer/unterstuetzer/
http://userbase.kde.org/Concepts/OpenPGP_Help_Spread
OpenPGP: 7D82 FB9F D25A 2CE4 5241 6C37 BF4B 8EEF 1A57 1DF5
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 490 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: </pipermail/attachments/20140719/7ca2e451/attachment.sig>