Web of trust in Southwest Ohio, USA

[Jason Barnett]

Jason Barnett wrote:
> Although I have read through the man page as well as a few web sites, I 
> am still quite new to GPG.  I searched a bit and found this newsgroup 
> and hope that you folks can help me with these questions.
> 
> - Can someone give me some advice on how to get started building my "web 
> of trust?"  I think I understand the basic concept; meet someone in real 
> life, verify they are who they say they are and exchange signatures. But 
> can someone give me some practical tips to get started?  (BTW I live in 
> southwest Ohio, USA).
> 
> - Is there a site where I can search *all* of the archives at once?  I 
> found http://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-users/?1106184443 but I can 
> only search within a one month time frame (and I hate to post questions 
> that have already been answered).
> 
> - I realize that not every person I email is going to use GPG / PGP so 
> I'd like to at least sign every email that I send.  What exactly is 
> supposed to be in my signature?  Is it the encrypted version of the 
> email I am sending?
> 
> Thanks in advance for whatever help you can send my way.  And if any of 
> you are PHP developers feel free to drop me a line some time.  :)

After I wrote this I thought of one other question.  I submitted my 
first public key to several keyservers (you can find it by going to 
http://keyserver.veridis.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x74D2856A). 
  As I understand it one person will often use multiple private keys 
(perhaps one for personal, one for work, one for when you get fired and 
start working somewhere else).

- Should I create a personal key and use that as my "primary" private 
key... and then assign other keys as "secondary" keys as needed?

I'm asking this mostly from a management perspective.  I understand how 
to do what I'm asking, I'm just asking if my line of thinking is correct 
or if I should be managing my keys in some other way.  Thanks again!