Ask HN: Is encryption safe enough to publish encrypted copy of private data

3 points by yazriel 10 years ago | 3 comments

If we have private data, encrypted using best practices (salted, 2048bit keys, private keys stored off line, etc), is it considered safe to post this encrypted data in a publicly accessible location?

Imagine if everyone encrypted and published a tarball of their email history. Would this data be considered "vulnerable" to attacks ?

byoung2 10 years ago |

Any form of encryption can be cracked eventually, given enough time and processing power. What if a new type of supercomputer is invented tomorrow that can crack 2048 bit in minutes? Not publishing your data would give you the opportunity to re-encrypt using the latest method.

LinuxBender 10 years ago |

One must assume encrypted content will not be safe in the future. I would also be leery of anything that says "perfect". e.g. Perfect Forward Secrecy. In the future, we may be making fun of that.

yazriel 10 years ago |

I am more worried about the obvious attack of sending a person a large known plaintext, and then using this to decrypt his tarball.