Removing a bad signature in a key

[David Shaw]

On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 05:24:12PM -0700, David Scribner wrote:

> That's not my problem however, just a little background on what
> I've done so far (and makes it apparent that although PGP is no
> longer displaying that signature, as mentioned below, it's got
> to still be in there somewhere if it's exporting it along with
> the key).
> 
> Even though PGP no longer shows the signature on this key, if I
> export it from there, then do a clean import into gpg using
> WinPT, it shows that there is no userid, and has a date of
> 1970-03-06. A regular clean import into gpg processes the file
> with no apparent problems, but it still shows as a blank
> signature in GPA as well. When I list the signatures with gpg,
> it lists the signature as "[unexpected signature class 0x1f]".
> 
> For the life of me I've not been able to get gpg 1.0.6 to allow
> me to see, let alone remove this one signature when editing the
> key (--edit-key). When it was visable at one point in PGP 6.5.8
> I was able to do so there, but I'm wondering what I might be
> missing to do this in gpg (I'm also curious as to why PGP
> doesn't want to show it anymore, but since I've transitioned,
> it's only a curiousity, not a problem).

Your mystery signature is a "direct key signature".  It's a special
sort of self-signature that applies to the key data, rather than the
usual key signature that applies to the key data plus the user ID
being signed.

Direct key signatures have a few possible uses, but most commonly are
used to set a designated revoker.  A designated revoker is someone who
you appoint to (among other things) revoke your key if you are unable
to do so yourself.  In the example key you gave (Philip Zimmermann's
key 0xB2D7795E), he has a designated revoker set.

GnuPG 1.0.6 does not support designated revokers.  You'll need to
upgrade to 1.0.7 to see what's inside those 1F signatures.  To answer
your other question, no, there is no way to delete them within GnuPG
(you really don't want to - key owners set designated revokers for a
reason).

David

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   David Shaw  |  dshaw@jabberwocky.com  |  WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
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