Is it safe to open ssh port to world with only key based authentication?

[Vijay Gill]

Hi,

    I read it somewhere (I googled and found it, but cannot find it
again) that if password based authentication is disabled and using
only key based, it is safe to have your fedora box available over the
internet so that you can login remotely.

   I currently have the system connected to cable broadband connection
with iptables based firewall rules which prevents connections to ssh.

   Recently I started using key based authentication and disabled
passwords in /etc/ssh/sshd_conf My question is, is it safe to open the
port 22 in my iptables firewall script?

Regards from
Vijay Gill