Keytypes and changing them

[David Shaw]

On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 12:53:45AM +0100, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:
> Or is there perhaps another software that I could use for chaging the 
> key usage flags (without damaging my key or changing the format or so). 
> Of course I'd prefer using GnuPG because I trust this the most :-)
> 
> Once again,.. I'm only going to do this,.. if it wouldn't have 
> disadvantages for the security. But if the only disadvantage is that I 
> have more work when someone asks me to response to a challenge I would 
> live with that ;-)

It has absolutely no impact on security, either for or against.  It is
a 90% meaningless flag, and is in fact happily ignored in virtually
all OpenPGP applications.  If you insist on making such a key, the
only impact that you'll notice is that you won't be able to answer
email challenges using GnuPG.

You sound like you really, really, want to do this.  I'm telling you
it's a bad idea, but it's your key.  You have to be happy with it.

David