undefined | Better HN

0 pointsviraptor11mo ago0 comments

What happens when you have multiple matching keys? What happens when your key expires? What happens when the output format changes? What happens when the key expires and it's attached to a hardware device? Gpg can fail in ways which do not tell you anything about the real underlying issue.

I promise this happens all the time to people for lots of stupid reasons.

0 comments

theteapot11mo ago

> What happens when you have multiple matching keys?

Use keyid instead.

> What happens when your key expires?

GPG will refuse to use it for encryption. Create a new encryption key.

> What happens when the output format changes?

N/A here (?)

> What happens when the key expires and it's attached to a hardware device?

You got me.

XorNot11mo ago

Also.. expired keys aren't unusable. The encryption doesn't stop working.

If you have an expired GPG private key it will still decrypt things encrypted with the public key.

viraptorOP11mo ago

They're not unusable, but depending on the gpg wrapper it may look like it. Gpgme is the one I had most issues with raining with fatal errors where gpg on its own only reports a warning.

Non of this is impossible to overcome. Yet, I still was sometimes relied on to debug things.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse