Protecting your keypair on a laptop is tricky. On one hand, you need your private key with you to decrypt or sign messages.
On the other hand, if your laptop is stolen then you risk losing your entire online identity, perhaps going back years, because the thief would have access to your private key and could then impersonate you.
You’d think that today, where laptops and world travel are commonplace, there’d be a little more information on how to secure a private key you have to travel with. But I could only find one resource: the Debian Wiki entry on subkeys. Fortunately it turns out this wiki page has exactly the solution we need.
Subkeys help protect your identity in case of private key (laptop) theft
If a thief gets ahold of the laptop with your private key on it, it’s pretty much game over. The thief can not only decrypt messages intended for you, they can also impersonate you by signing messages with your private key. Your only recourse would be to revoke your key, but that would mean losing years of signatures on that key and basically creating a massive inconvenience for yourself.
Part of the answer to this problem is the concept of subkeys. Subkeys can’t prevent a thief from decrypting messages intended for your private key. But they can help mitigate the damage to your identity should your key be lost or stolen.
The concept behind this technique is as follows:
Create a regular GPG keypair. By default GPG creates one signing subkey (your identity) and one encryption subkey (how you receive messages intended for you).
Use GPG to add an additional signing subkey to your keypair. This new subkey is linked to the first signing key. Now we have three subkeys.
This keypair is your master keypair. Store it in a protected place like your house or a safe-deposit box. Your master keypair is the one whose loss would be truly catastrophic.
Copy your master keypair to your laptop. Then use GPG to remove the original signing subkey, leaving only the new signing subkey and the encryption subkey. This transforms your master keypair into your laptop keypair.
Your laptop keypair is what you’ll use for day-to-day GPG usage.
What’s the benefit to this setup? Since your master keypair isn’t stored on your traveling laptop, that means you can revoke the subkeys on your laptop should your laptop be stolen. Since you’re not revoking the original subkey you created in the master keypair—remember, we removed it from our laptop’s keypair—that means you don’t have to create a new keypair and go through the hassle of getting people to sign it again. You’d still have to revoke the stolen subkey, and the thief could still use the encryption subkey to decrypt any messages you’ve already received, but at least the damage done won’t be as catastrophic.
Basil Poledouris has never been happy with both the original performance and the recording in Rome. The composer has always been very disappointed that the Rome orchestra could not provide every desired instrument he wanted in the score. This is now corrected for this new complete recording featuring 96 musicians and a choir of 100 voices.
Previous Releases
Varese Sarabande release – 1982
Milan Records – ????
Conan The Barbarian (Prometheus Edition) – 2010
Conan The Barbarian (Prometheus Edition) – 2010
Few fantasy adventure scores are as renown among soundtrack fans as Basil Poledouris’s Conan the Barbarian. And though the 1982 Varese Sarabande release of the original recording holds up extremely well to this day (as does to a lesser extent the shorter Milan Records one), it has become increasingly hard to find and Poledouris himself was reportedly never completely satisfied with the results within. Thus Prometheus Records have undertaken the task of creating a more fully realized new recording, spanning two discs and enlisting the talents of the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, the 100-voice CPPO Chorus and conductor Nic Raine (the same orchestra-conductor combo behind the soundtracks to Kameo and Viva Pinata).
The first of two major selling points for the album, its new orchestral and choral performances and modern recording, are billed to more accurately fulfill Poledouris’s original vision for the score. Now the original version was no slouch when it came to its performances, so to even hint at improvement is quite a boast. And in many ways I’d say the promise holds true. Right at the outset of the score, “Anvil of Crom” flaunts the strength of the City of Prague orchestra, adding an extra layer to the opening anthem’s climactic notes and bringing an even more epic sound. And the chorus in “Riddle of Steel / Riders of Doom” makes a strong case for being even more powerful than in the original version, something I would never have considered a possibility until this new release came along. In “The Gift of Fury” and “The Tree of Woe / Recovery”, a more nuanced choral arrangement and fuller-sounding recording make the Prometheus versions even more emotive.
In the quiet instrumental tracks, however, I’m inclined to say I prefer the original recording. Though the Prometheus edition includes two versions of the endearing town theme “Theology / Civilization” – a wispy new arrangement with more distinctly medieval instrumentation and an “alternate version” closer to the original – the instruments sound nearer the listener and the solo performances even more beautiful in the earlier Varese Sarabande recording. In “Conan Leaves Valeria / The Search”, the orchestra at full sounds more even and immersive in the Prometheus edition, but again I find the solo performances more moving in the original. There’s also a question of whether the more diversified instrumentation – particularly in the percussion section – always constitutes an improvement. It certainly makes the soundtrack more faithful to its medieval setting, but in “Column Of Sadness / Wheel Of Pain” and briefly in “The Search” I find the atypical accompanying percussion a slight distraction from the more important lead themes.
The second major selling point of the Prometheus edition is the extra material exclusive to this release. There’s almost 50 more minutes of music over the Varese Sarabande edition, and its effect on the score varies. “Prologue (Film Version) / Anvil of Crom” and “Battle Preparations / Battle of the Mounds (Part I)” have new minute-long intro segments, but as both bits consists of sparse, mostly meaningless percussion they really should have been split into separate tracks. “Wolf Witch” and “In the Court of King Osric” are similarly simple percussive pieces, though as individual tracks they can be easily skipped. “Orgy Fight” and “Epilogue / End Titles” are both simple rehashes of “Anvil of Crom” and “Riders of Doom”, melded not entirely cohesively together.
The extra effort put into this Prometheus edition certainly wasn’t all for naught though. “Pit Fight” adds to the gritty mood that often pervades the score, the choral piece “The Street of Deviants / Hopefuls at the Tower of Set” has an extremely dark fantasy sound faithful to the old Conan comics, “The Tower of Set / Snake Attack” enchants with its combination of light percussion and female chorus, and “The Tavern” is perhaps the most medieval sounding piece of the whole soundtrack. Each of these contribute to their respective aspects of the score, though as they don’t add anything essential theme-wise I’d say they’re more for film buffs and completists.
Along with the various alternate takes included at the end of this double-disc Prometheus edition comes one very special extra – a new seven-minute performance of the sequel Conan the Destroyer’s “Crystal Palace”, retitled “Chamber of Mirrors”. This piece is brilliant – moving from quiet mysticism to raw danger to a main theme similar to “Anvil of Crom” but more proudly heroic, it captures the medieval fantasy feel of the property as perfectly as any piece from its esteemed predecessor, and makes me wish more material from Conan the Destroyer could have been included.
Featured Artists
Basil Poledouris (composer)
City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (performance)
CPPO Chorus (performance)
Nic Raine (conducting)
Greig McRitchie (orchestration)
Disc 1 Tracks (60 minutes total)
Prologue – Film Version / Anvil of Crom [3:38] MP3 sample
Riddle of Steel / Riders of Doom [5:23] MP3 sample
The Gift of Fury [3:25]
Column of Sadness / Wheel of Pain [4:09]
Pit Fights* [2:45]
Prologue – Original Version [1:03]
Atlantean Sword [4:00]
Wolf Witch* [3:21]
Theology / Civilization [3:04] MP3 sample
The Street of Deviants* / Hopefuls at the Tower of Set* [1:28]
The Tower of Set* / Snake Attack* (Las Cantigas de Santa Maria) [5:21] MP3 sample
Infidels* [1:03]
The Tavern* [1:51] MP3 sample
The Wifeing [2:20]
In the Court of King Osric* [1:13]
Conan Leaves Valeria / The Search [6:03]
The Mountain of Power / Capture* [4:00]
The Tree of Woe / Recovery [6:04]
Disc 2 Tracks (62 minutes total)
The Kitchen / The Orgy [6:23]
Orgy Fight* [2:53]
Funeral Pyre [5:15]
Battle Preparations / Battle of the Mounds (Part 1) [5:59]
Battle of the Mounds (Part 2)* [2:11] MP3 sample
Battle of the Mounds (Part 3) / Night of Doom [5:56]
Head Chop* [0:53]
Orphans of Doom / The Awakening [6:30]
Epilogue / End Titles* [5:13]
Theology / Civilization – Alternate Version [3:27]
The Tower of Set – Alternate Cues* [3:37]
Battle of the Mounds (Part 2) – Original Version* [2:11]
Chamber of Mirrors (from Conan the Destroyer) [7:16] MP3 sample
Riders of Doom – Orchestral Version [4:05]
Release Notes
Released Nov 2, 2010 by Prometheus Records (catalog no. B004H1YH66, retail 18.95 GBP).
Asterisks denote previously unrecorded material.
Original theatrical recording available on a 1992 Varese Sarabande release and a shorter 1984 Milan Records one (re-released in 2003).
In The Woods of Eryn Vorn 