beginner type questions

[John W. Moore III]

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Durant, Dean wrote:
> Hello, I noticed, on windows (which I truly despise), when I type 
>  
> C:\Documents and Settings\me\Application Data\gnupg>gpg --gen-key
>  
> I get:
> 
> gpg (GnuPG) 2.0.12; Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. (add'l copyleft info)
> 
> Please select what kind of key you want:
>    (1) RSA and RSA (default)
>    (2) DSA and Elgamal
>    (3) DSA (sign only)
>    (4) RSA (sign only)
>  
> on ubuntu, I get these choices (the version of GPG is 2.0.9):
> Please select what kind of key you want:
> 
> (1) DSA and Elgamal (default)
> (2) DSA (sign only)
> (5) RSA (sign only)
> 
> What is the difference?   Isn't RSA better?

Robert's answer was accurate but I'm not sure it was the answer to the
question You were asking.  Between versions 2.0.9 & 2.0.12 the Default
for Key Generation was changed.  This change is viewed as minor by many
which apparently includes the Ubuntu developers.  :)

The reason the Default was changed was to make better use of available
Hash functions.  DSA Signing Keys are limited to 160bit Hashes unless
DSA2 is invoked,  RSA Signing Keys can utilize all the Hash functions
without any 'games' being played.  To eliminate any confusion in the
future and based upon the number of folks who eventually migrated away
from DSA Keys to RSA Keys due to personal perceptions the Default was
changed to RSA.

Additionally, in the very beginning RSA was encumbered by patents which
have now expired.  You can easily work around this in Ubuntu at present
by selecting option 5 and then generating an RSA Encryption sub-Key.

HTH

JOHN ;)
Timestamp: Monday 05 Oct 2009, 16:02  --400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
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