What happens when a key expires?

[David Shaw]

--SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Mon, Oct 15, 2001 at 01:55:28PM -0400, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> My key looks like this:
>=20
> pub  1024D/9A2FC99A 2001-09-22 Jean-David Beyer (Institute for
> Regimented Whimsey) <jdbeyer@jdbeyer.exit109.com>
> sub  1024g/EEF02424 2001-09-22 [expires: 2002-09-22]
>=20
> I expect that a little before 2002-09-22 comes around, I will make a new
> 1024g key to replace EEF02424 and export it to some keyservers. But what
> happens to the e-mails I have received (assuming I have kept them) that
> have been encoded with EEF02424? I would not want people sending me new
> email with EEF02424 after that key expires, and I suppose they will not.
> But will I still be able to read the old e-mails (provided I do not
> delete it from my private keyring)?

Yes, you will be able to read the old messages a long as you keep your
key around.

Note that nothing stops people from using the key after it expires.
Expired and revoked keys in OpenPGP are sort of a recommendation to
the user - more along the lines of "Please don't use this key", rather
than "It is impossible to use this key".

David

--=20
   David Shaw  |  dshaw@jabberwocky.com  |  WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-+
   "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
      We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson

--SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

iQEVAwUBO8tN44ccwqs8s7QVAQFblwgAibDSYLSRlbzkP71kXpcUJqL8AV7my1Ak
YOE3Srce6Uex7eHG9EB+yqqEntlWRIzB37u+fZdJzaQtwvUQGnd3+kDNuA5t3ty/
ydTfoRsmYjKi0GYENsZao+xp9TL5WbfPVP1oIJ23L/8dLnMt+EWRxDWBFAGRUerV
Iwap04C+MM+K/I2SVC0/megQGF+kfr5B6eefX7J9qCRVQeM02AcaICh2PpnrWgni
twyDHYjV8QLZY0lHeXCWM9qgJ4GRP+JlqPgnbiq+KgZe/7eIVz24DcF5zcMFCrb0
LUBOzl7v7/0jPqxl8Ww4DNor+Zd/5uTh8kLbElZ3qB6O6kodRPfXTg==
=/cEx
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s--