PGP swap to disk?

[Aidan Skinner]

> He says that he's used PGP before, and that it didn't need to be setuid
> root.

I don't understand why GPG needs to be suid, but it might be due to the
particular kernel call it's making. 

> What attack is being countered by preventing a swap to disk?

If the bit of memory that holds the private key or password is swaped to
disk, then it might stay there when Eve (an agent of <insert favourite
three letter agency here>) gets your HD and can recover it. This is Bad.

- Aidan