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“Brainwallet” is a program that takes a passphrase (hopefully a good one) and deterministically creates a Bitcoin wallet. This wallet can be used for transactions, then deleted from the computer. To get access to the wallet again, you only need the passphrase to re-create it.

Does something similar exist for GPG? If yes, where can I get it?
If not, is it even possible to create such a program? Maybe it's just a bad idea?

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closed as off-topic by e-sushi, AFS, figlesquidge, Gilles, DrLecter Mar 3 at 11:49



I don't know whether it exists in GPG in a standardized interface/format, but the answer to whether it is possible is yes. Private keys usually get seeded with random data, but you could also deterministically create private keys for GPG use from a password. –  orlp Oct 23 '13 at 9:10
Same problem as for all password based encryption, except a bit worse since it's not possible to use salts. So whenever practical, encrypt your private key with the password instead of using a password as seed. –  CodesInChaos Oct 23 '13 at 14:05
@ralu The coding part is easy. Typical password quality is a problem, especially since you can't use salts. –  CodesInChaos Oct 23 '13 at 19:55
I have done this. See my code here: stackoverflow.com/questions/21937369/… –  spectator Feb 21 at 23:32
@figlesquidge, I don't know about that. How to generate a gpg key from a passphrase seems more crypto than security. –  RobKohr Mar 5 at 20:23