Mailing List Archive

Does it weaken a private key...
to sign many short messages? I have an application that signs
thousands of short, 40 byte messages. Would it be desirable to pad my
message length with more data?

I ask here because I'm planning to use gpg as the first signature
interface.
Re: Does it weaken a private key... [ In reply to ]
Oscar Levi <elf@buici.com> writes:

> to sign many short messages? I have an application that signs
> thousands of short, 40 byte messages. Would it be desirable to pad my
> message length with more data?

No. We do not sign the message but the hash of the message which is a
20 byte value. Only if the hash function is detected to be bad we
have problems - but everything relies on a good cryptographic hash
even the RNG uses the hash function to protect its internal state.


Werner