DidiSoft OpenPGP Library for Java version 3.2.2 has been released today with full support for EdDsa based on Curve-25519 and Elliptic Curve Diffie-Helman (ECDH) based on Curve 25519.
What is Curve-25519?
Curve 25519 is an Elliptic curve designed to be both high security and with high-speed operations.
The previous Elliptic Curves used in OpenPGP were suggested by NIST. The alternative Brainpool curves which are offered outside of NIST, suffer from speed performance.
Curve 25519 offers security, performance and is invented outside of NIST.
Why Curve-25519?
Elliptic Curve Cryptography is considered more secure than RSA and classic Diffie-Hellman/DSA.
OpenPGP is headed towards using asymmetric keys based on Elliptic Curves and If using PGP keys based on Elliptic Curves we have to choose between the NIST curves, Brainpool Curves or Curve-25519.
Speed performance
Creating a key-pair with Elliptic Curves takes < 1 ms, whereas a 4096 bit RSA key requires more than 20 seconds!
You can check here how to create an EdDsa/Curve-25519 key pair.
What’s next
OpenPGP is evolving driven by the current flagship product GnuPG. The upcoming update of the OpenPGP standard has already reserved values for AEDH and AEDSA.
