[Remops] Generating a stronger PGP key?

[Crypto]

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On 3/17/2014 2:54 PM, Bergman Admin wrote:
> On 16/03/14 04:23 PM, Cypher wrote:
>> I noticed that the PGP key that's generated by Mixmaster is only 
>> 1024. In light of todays technology, that seems a bit low. Is
>> there a way to generate a stronger key? Also, is there a
>> compelling reason /not/ to do so?
> 
> Mixmaster is known as a Type II remailer. It was written as a 
> replacement to the Type I or cpunk remailers of old. I suspect
> that the authors of Mixmaster chose to include support for Type I
> messages only as a means of transition from Type I to Type II. As
> such it was written in a way that did not leave room for PGP keys
> sizes different than 1024 bits.
> 
> Surprisingly, Type I messages remain popular. Probably because
> nyms remain popular and they use type I.
> 
> Now, there has been improvement lately on the size of Mix keys.
> Take a look at this verion of mixmaster which suports four
> different mix key sizes: 1024, 2048, 3072, and 4096 (default). 
> http://www.zen19351.zen.co.uk/mixmaster302/
> 
> A few of us have set up test remailers - not for public consumption
> - using the larger mix keys. See http://www.mixmin.net/echolot/

Actually I did quite a bit of work on Mixmaster. The reason was that
in the early 90's a 1024-bit key was acceptable. At that time it was
not feasible to use larger keys because the best you could get on a
desktop computer was a Pentium-I. So to use larger keys would have
introduced a severe lag in computational abilities with the associated
wait-time for encryption/decryption. Keep in mind that the average
desktop back in the early 90's used an 8080 processor and if you were
lucky you would have a 8087 math co-processor. Mixmaster was NEVER
intended to replace the type-I Ghio remailer. It's an entity unto
itself. In the years that things have been progressing the
TypeI/TypeII distinction has been blurred. With the advent of faster
computers is is now feasible to use larger keys. Unfortunately the
code has not caught up with the technology. But remember, the
encryption strength is probably acceptable due to the fact that we are
using it for transient messages rather than long-term file storage.

- -- 
Crypto

Keywords: terrorism, bombs, jogging, suntan lotion,
nails, pellets, knives, shoes, underwear, milk, socks,
hair, toenails, masturbation, gasoline, cooking oil,
mayonnaise, bananas, Obama, Clinton, EFF, NSA, FBI,
PGP, USA, pressure cooker, marathon, fertilizer

Keywords are not necessarily in order of importance

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