gpg > addphoto

[gnupg at raf.org]

Stefan Claas wrote:

> I only wanted to know why such a large image size in the first
> place was chosen, when GnuPG suggest a much much smaller
> size. :-)

I'd guess that it's not about image size. It's a
maximum packet size. Things other than images have to
go in there as well (although an image would no doubt
usually take up most of the space). It's part of GNU
philosophy to not implement unnecessary hard limits in
software but one good reason to impose limits is to
prevent denial of service conditions. Perhaps a 16MB
packet size limit was chosen because it would be more
than enough to support keys with a huge number of
signatures, and an image, without causing problems for
users, and without permitting a denial of service
condition. 16MB isn't that much RAM these days. But I
am just guessing. I hope it's not to support hi-res
iris scans, voice prints and compressed DNA. :-)

cheers,
raf