GnuPG --symmetric & default password?

[Richard Ivarson]

Hello,

This more of a GnuPG question, but since I use the Cygwin version, maybe 
somebody knows... :-)

In my GnuPG's "gpg.conf" there's the entry
   default-recipient-self
so that all files I asymmetrically encrypt with "gpg --encrypt" are also 
decryptable by myself.

I wonder if there's a similar mechansism to the "--symmetric" version, with 
which you can encrypt files which you don't intend to give to other persons.
Normally, with "gpg --symmetric file" you always have to enter the passphrase.


Another question for the encryption specialists: How strong is GnuPG's 
--symmetric encryption with the default CAST5 algorithm compared to, for 
example, 7zip's encryption (Cygwin name "p7zip") which uses AES-256 ?

Thanks!

-Richard


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