Backing up your PGP key by hand

[Jacob Bachmeyer]

Lars Noodén via Gnupg-users wrote:
> A removable hard drive might be an option, if the storage time is less
> than a decade and there are decent storage conditions in regards to
> chemicals, temperature, humidity, and so on.  Flash memory seems to lose
> its charge rather quickly, measured in months.

Write-once optical media is my preferred means of long-term backup for 
nontrivial amounts of data, but this view about flash losing data in 
months is completely ridiculous.  Typical data retention specs for flash 
memory are for decades.  If losing data in mere months were acceptable, 
just about nothing would work, including the computer you use for email 
-- its firmware is almost certainly in flash and it is probably more 
than a few months old.

I have SD cards and USB sticks with data blocks last written many years 
ago and still readable.  Granted, I have never used low-end no-name 
Chinesium storage, so that may have something to do with it, but flash 
memory is far more durable than a few months.  Battery-backed SRAM 
typically has batteries that last longer than that; if flash only held 
data for months, it would never have been commercially viable for 
displacing said SRAM.


-- Jacob