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What is the chance of producing a composite instead of a prime with PGP?

April 26, 2017chance Composite PGP Prime producing

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What is the chance of producing a composite instead of a prime with PGP?

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Slim. Very slim indeed. From [PGP97], the chances of the prime number generation routines in PGP v5.0 producing a composite instead of a prime (that is to say, a number that passes the probabilistic tests) for a 1024-bit key (e.g. a 512-bit candidate prime) are 10-44. To put things in perspective, the chances of another “Dinosaur Killer asteroid” hitting the earth TODAY are 2-36 [PGP97].