> It’s unclear to me any stateful keychains are implied here.
Encrypted files are encrypted to a key. It could be a one time use key encrypted to another key as PGP and Age both do, but still there is a long lived secret a user must maintain somewhere, somehow, and have a strategy for backup, rotation, discovery, validation, etc etc.
> it’s unclear to me why point 5 belongs in the cryptosystem layer (such as with PGP) rather than on some higher, more adaptable layer.
There are a ton of other ways these problems could be solved. If we had a time machine we would go back and design way different tools and specs to address the problems PGP solves. We would redesign the internet too.
What I take issue with is people recommending age or minisign or signing with ssh keys when all of these just pretend the problems PGP solves do not exist, and thus set people up to fail.
Encrypted files are encrypted to a key. It could be a one time use key encrypted to another key as PGP and Age both do, but still there is a long lived secret a user must maintain somewhere, somehow, and have a strategy for backup, rotation, discovery, validation, etc etc.
> it’s unclear to me why point 5 belongs in the cryptosystem layer (such as with PGP) rather than on some higher, more adaptable layer.
There are a ton of other ways these problems could be solved. If we had a time machine we would go back and design way different tools and specs to address the problems PGP solves. We would redesign the internet too.
What I take issue with is people recommending age or minisign or signing with ssh keys when all of these just pretend the problems PGP solves do not exist, and thus set people up to fail.