v3 subkeys and signatures (was: Using second keyring may be)

[David Shaw]

On Jun 23, 2012, at 2:49 AM, Georgi Guninski <guninski at guninski.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 12:40:23PM -0400, David Shaw wrote:
>> 
>> ....  V3 can't be a primary and have subkeys of their own)
> 
> 
> This is not entirely correct.
> 
> Technically v3 may have subkeys (after patching gpg) - check the
> keyring "fake4" that I posted on this list.

Yes. Werner and I were discussing this in the context of the OpenPGP spec. In OpenPGP, v3 keys cannot have subkeys (it's in section 11 - "V3 keys MUST NOT have subkeys"). GPG actually allowed this for a while until the spec was changed.  If you patch the code, you can of course make it do anything you want :)

> Not sure if v3 subkeys are usable though - maybe gpg needs more
> patching to sign with them.

They should be (at least in 1.4 they were).  I haven't tried it in 2.x recently.

David