subkey types and preferences...

[Douglas F. Calvert]

Hello,
 Is there any consensus about which signing subkey type is better, RSA
or DSA? And or for that matter El Gamal vs. RSA for encryption? What are
the merits/drawbacks of the different key types?

 The next questions are about the preferences for keys:

pub  1024D/C9541FB2  created: 2002-02-27 expires: never      trust: u/u
sub  4096g/0CA2DB2F  created: 2002-02-27 expires: never
(1). Douglas F. Calvert <dfc at anize.org>
(2)  [jpeg image of size 4350]

Command> showpref
pub  1024D/C9541FB2  created: 2002-02-27 expires: never      trust: u/u
(1). Douglas F. Calvert <dfc at anize.org>
     Cipher: AES, TWOFISH, CAST5, BLOWFISH, 3DES
     Digest: RIPEMD160, SHA1
     Compression: ZLIB, ZIP, Uncompressed
(2)  [jpeg image of size 4350]
     Cipher: AES, CAST5, 3DES
     Digest: SHA1, RIPEMD160
     Compression: ZLIB, ZIP, Uncompressed
     Features: MDC

Why does my image uid have different preferences than my first UID? I
imagine that it is because the uid was added with a newer version of
gnupg. Should I update the preferences of ID 1 to match those of UID2?
And while we are on the subject of preferences are there any other
preferences that I should update? I generated a test key with 1.2.4 and
the default preferences are:

(1). default default <defaiult at email.com>
     Cipher: AES256, AES192, AES, CAST5, 3DES
     Digest: SHA1, RIPEMD160
     Compression: ZLIB, ZIP, Uncompressed
     Features: MDC

I generated a new key with 1.3.6 and the preferences are the same except
for the addition of the keyserver no-modify setting. 

I am most concerned about security and the overwhelming majority of my
communications are with people who use gnupg. With that in mind should I
go with the default updpref or is there a set of preferences that would
match my tin-foil hat better?

Finally, I noticed that werner's key 57548DCD, has more than the normal
two digest prefs that I have run across. Out of curiosity is there a
good reason to have a short or long list of preferred ciphers/digests? 

Thanks a lot...

--dfc

--
Douglas F. Calvert 
Email: dfc at anize.org
Spam Inbox: maudet at anize.org