Backing up your PGP key by hand

[Julian H. Stacey]

Stuart Longland via Gnupg-users wrote:
> On Tue, 03 May 2022 19:52:21 +0000 (UTC)
> Matt Borja <me at mattborja.dev> wrote:
> 
> > Does exporting your private key (which already comes encrypted and requires
> > password authentication) to encrypted USB flash drive then placed under
> > lock and key not suffice as an offline backup?
> 
> If the USB flash drive does not fail, then yes, it would suffice.
> 
> NAND Flash memory (the sort used in USB flash drives), relies on a
> static charge being placed on the gate of a MOSFET to "bias" the MOSFET
> on or off.
> 
> In a perfect world, that gate is perfectly insulated and will not leak.
> 
> We don't live in such a world, there is a non-infinite resistance that
> allows a leakage current, and the charge will eventually fade.  How
> long will that take?  Who knows?

1 of 2 electret condenser microphones (Unisound EM-850), bought ~
1976, has failed so far with me.  The industry did back then expect them
to discharge eventually. They've only been used for minutes each
decade, so it wasn't over use.  Dometic storage temperate humidity &
temperature, not hot or cold warehouse, not polar or tropics, boxed,
no sunshine, no ionising radiaton beyond domestic terrestial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electret_microphone

Disk manufacturers' data sheets on error rates were a sobering experience
years back. Probably the same for USB sticks now.
Best copy on multiple media types from different manufacturers.

Cheers,
-- 
Julian Stacey  http://berklix.com/jhs/ http://stolenVotes.uk
Arm Ukraine, Zap killer Putin, grain & fuel loss hits poorest.