Feature Suggestion - scp don't decrypt file at destination unecrypt on copy back switch

[Jim Knoble]

Circa 2005-04-08 dixit Thomas Baden:

: > >  > tar zcf - /path/to/whatever | gpg --encrypt -r
: 
: Doesn't GPG / PGP compress the data before encrypting
: anyway to make plaintext attacks more difficult?

GPG or PGP may be configured to disable compression; this ensures that
the data are compressed no matter what.

: If so, then one could leave off the -z switch (which isn't supported
: by all TAR implementations).

Yes; in fact, the following sort of thing tends to be more portable than
'tar -z':

    tar -cf - /path/to/whatever | gzip -9 | whatever

The standard stuff applies here:

    - use bzip2 instead of gzip for better, but slower, compression

    - use pax (with differing command-line syntax) instead of tar for
      better POSIX/ustar compatibility

-- 
jim knoble  |  jmknoble at pobox.com  |  http://www.pobox.com/~jmknoble/
(GnuPG fingerprint: 809F:09B9:9686:D035:4AB0::9455:124B:0A62:DD6A:76D6)
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