Puttygen rsa dsa

The math might not matter. This thread seems pre-Snowden. Here is a :

(Reuters) - As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

(around 17:26)

Ira: What are some of the things that we know that the NSA has broken into?

Matt: So we have heard a number of things that we can probably credit for real. … random number generators … we know that NSA through NIST … has very likely put back doors in some of those standard algorithms that allow them to essentially break those systems entirely.

Ira: You mean the NSA created those back doors?

Matt: That's exactly right. So NIST works with NSA - and they're required to by law. We thought NSA was helping NIST by developing more secure standards for Americans to use. We now suspect - and have strong evidence to believe - that the situation was exactly the opposite; that NIST was being used to put out standards that the NSA could break.

Considering these recent revelations the strength of the algorithms seems largely irrelevant. RSA appears to have been a private company somehow bought by the NSA, and DSA was created by NIST itself, which, according to these experts is largely a front for NSA crypto research.

In other words, it really doesn't matter if you are using the random number generators that come with pretty much any modern computer, which OpenSSH and others do.

Pick the one that is the fastest for what you want. In my case, I reuse the same key for a lot of stuff so DSA's faster generation speed is less desirable. Also, maybe there is some wild chance that RSA was actually an independent entity from NIST and NSA, whereas we know DSA was created by NIST.