On Sun, 11 Aug 2002, Russell Turpin wrote:> If you're using the mail client on your personal
> machine, there's no reason you would need to enter
> a passphrase, unless that is part of how you secure
> the data on your personal machine. You're privateThe original comment's context was digital signatures. A digital signature
is worth sqrat if any userspace app or rogue superuser code can grab your
keyring in clear, and send out stuff in your name. A passphrase unlocking
the keyring for that particular use is a minimal protection (since not
immune to passphrase snarfers), but this is much, much better than always
leaving your key in the lock. (Why then having at all the key, in the
first place?)> key is as secure as any other data on your machine.
> If you're working remotely, you already have to
> enter a passphrase to get to your email.A passphrase is a (long, secure) password unlocking (decrypting) your 
keyring. You don't use a passphrase to read your email. Unless it resides 
on a crypto file system.http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork
