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

3 points by yazriel ↗ HN
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 ?

3 comments

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LinuxBender
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.
byoung2
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.
yazriel
I am more worried about the obvious attack of sending a person a large known plaintext, and then using this to decrypt his tarball.