>I'll continue the tangent: Encryption's great against an attacker who >has physical access to the device holding your data, as long as they >don't have physical access to the device holding your keys! This is a bit different than your point, but one thing I've been trying to find out, so far without any authoritative input, is how much of an increased risk is it for a laptop that has a PGP disk on it to also have the private key file accessible. Most installations default to the private (and public) key rings being installed in the PGP program file directory. For a while there, I always used removable media to store my key rings (diskonkey, memory stick, etc.) as a "just in case" defense, but I've never really had any confirmation that someone who has access to the encrypted private key file (but not the passphrase) has a better chance of cracking the encrypted data. In fact, the commercial version of PGP Corp's "Mobile PGP for CE" does not have an option to change the location of the key rings -- they stay on the handheld device itself, (as opposed to a secure digital/compact flash card). Is a weak passphrase more easily exploited with the presense of the key ring vs direct attack against the encrypted data? Stuff like that... Anyone have any insight? T
