Which version of GnuPG to use?

[Stefan Claas]

Werner Koch wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 23:49, gnupg-users at gnupg.org said:
> 
> > speak, with a specially crafted software, when using an online computer
> > with a SmardCard? I have read that the secret key can not been copied from
> > the card, but what about the 'bits and pieces' in memory when decrypting?
> 
> Side-channel attacks on smartcards are an pretty old thing dating back
> to the late 80ies.  Current smartcards are hardened against most such
> attacks.  Unless you have physical access to the card the secrets and
> their use on the card/token are well protected against any sniffing by
> the host.

Unfortunately I am no programmer but I was thinking about the following:

I assume that in order to decrypt a message the secret key data must be
unlocked and loaded for a very short time into the computers RAM, in order
to perform the decryption, or am I wrong with my assumption?

And if I am not wrong, would that be very difficult to get the parameters
from the secret key or does GnuPG somehow (tries to) prevent this?

Sorry for this question but I like to learn more about how this works
and if I should invest in a smardcard in the future, for online usage.

Regards
Stefan

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