PGP Key Pair Generator

RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) is the traditional PGP key algorithm offering wide compatibility. A 4096-bit RSA key provides strong security but is slower to generate and produces larger signatures. ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) with Curve25519 offers equivalent security to RSA-3072 with much smaller keys and faster operations. The trade-off is that ECC has slightly less support in legacy PGP implementations.

ASCII armoring converts binary PGP key data into Base64-encoded text wrapped with header and footer lines (e.g., -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----). This makes binary cryptographic data safe to paste into emails, text files, and web forms without encoding corruption. The armored format is the standard way to share and store PGP keys and encrypted messages.

Setting an expiration date limits the damage if your private key is compromised without your knowledge. If an attacker obtains your key, an expiry ensures it eventually becomes invalid. You can always extend the expiration date on a key you still control — the expiry is a safety backstop, not a limitation on legitimate use. Keys without expiration dates remain valid indefinitely even if lost.

A PGP fingerprint is a short hash (typically 40 hex characters) of the public key, used to verify key identity without exchanging the full key. When someone gives you their public key, you verify the fingerprint through a trusted out-of-band channel (in person, phone call, etc.) to confirm you received the genuine key and not a substituted one. This prevents man-in-the-middle attacks in key exchange.