Re: Hack PGP

[Daniel Persson <mailto.woden () gmail com>]

Well I pretty much knew it was impossible but I had to ask. Well my
key lenght was 4196 bits so it's quite strong and well when I say wipe
I mean using a tool that writes zeroes and random data over the disk
atleast 3-4 passes. So the key and all chanses of opening the files
are pretty much history. I was just curious if there was anyone that
had made a try to break it and how far they had come.

Thanks alot for the discussion.


On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 20:33:57 +0100, Andreas Putzo
<andreas () inferno nadir org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Saturday 15 January 2005 07:06, Daniel Persson wrote:
> > I have a delema that is quite strange but then again feasable. I did a
> > backup on my system and wiped my harddrive and then installed
> > everything from scratch.
> > My problem was that the PGP keys where locked down on my harddrive and
> > couldn't be copied by the backup system.
>
> Bad. Very bad. Keep at least one copy of your secret key on a save medium,
> eg.  an usb-stick or a disk in your bank deposit box.
> Facing your problem, i would 1st try, to recover the key from your
> harddisk. By 'wipe' you mean a simple delete? If so, you _may have a
> change without paying a lot of money for a forensic professional.
> You may take a look at sleuthkit[1] or 'The Coroners Toolkit' to look at
> your HD for deleted files.
> If the name information for your secret_key is gone, you can possibly
> identify it on its size.
> Of course, you have to stop writing to this harddisk immediately! Take an
> image with 'dd' to another harddisk and work with this image further on.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Andreas
>
> [1] http://www.sleuthkit.org


-- 
Daniel Persson
mailto.woden () gmail com