secret key storage?
I am curious if most people store their keys in the default location. Does anyone keep their secret in a different location (like a thumbdrive, other external, encrypted volume, some other thing) and if so why?
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Support Staff 1 Posted by Luke Le on 07 Jan, 2012 09:16 AM
Hi,
I think a lot of people, especially less experienced ones
store their keys on a local harddrive, which is fine in most cases.
It basically always makes sense though to store your keys on a thumbdrive, since your keys won't be comprimised if your computer is.
But it's sure more convenient to keep in on the local hard drive.
Hope that helps :)
2 Posted by Arthur Lee-Feld... on 07 Jan, 2012 04:30 PM
That's what I figured, I just wanted to get a sense of what most users were actually doing. What was bothering me was the time machine issue. I work in a couple different places and leave Time Machine backup drives in each of them, which I realize have a copy of my secret key just sitting out there. In some ways I am okay with this as I most about encryption for messages stored on servers and I am not quite as worried about someone impersonating me or sending email as me; however, it also seems like not a best practice.
Perhaps just striking that file from Time Machine and storing a backup on a thumb drive is a better option than what I currently do.
/Art
Support Staff 3 Posted by Luke Le on 07 Jan, 2012 04:48 PM
It's true, Time Machine imposes kind of a security issue,
but if you make sure the Backups aren't easily accessible it's basically similar to a thumbdrive option. If you keep that lying around,
people could again get a hold of your keys
4 Posted by Arthur Lee-Feld... on 07 Jan, 2012 07:56 PM
Thanks for weighing in.
/Art
5 Posted by Alex on 08 Jan, 2012 11:48 AM
In this context: you con encrypt (FileVault 2) your hard drive as well as your backup drive.
Alex closed this discussion on 08 Jan, 2012 11:48 AM.