So the situation is thus. We're working with another company and as part of some file distribution processing we have to encrypt some files before they are sent.
The company in question sent us their public key which we have been using to encrypt files using GPG.
Recently they've got back to us complaining that they need to enter a passphrase each time they attempt to decrypt their files. So they changed their settings on their side to remove the passphrase requirement and sent us another public key
The thing is this "new" public key seem exactly the same as the old one. These are my tests: -
- Both .asc files -> the same
- MD5 hashsums of .asc files -> the same
- Installed key into a test keystore -> GPG refuses to install it as it's the same as the one already there (i.e. "Unchanged: 1")
- Deleted key from keystore, installed "new" key, made note of fingerprint/other details, deleted key again
- Added "old" key to keystore, made note of fingerprint/other details
- Compared the two notes -> the same
Surely we don't need to install this "new" public key if it's exactly the same as the old one? The reason why I ask is it's a bit of a pain to call our ops team to get them to install the key in the PROD keystore if we don't need to.
Any advice would be appreciated.