Using "ultimate" Owner Trust

David Scribner dscribner@yahoo.com
Thu Aug 15 04:54:01 2002


With v1.0.7, I understand that the handling of owner trust
levels has changed in that when a user creates a key pair, the
key is no longer automatically set with an unlimited trust level
(requiring the owner to set the level manually).

In v1.0.6 the "ultimate" level was only available for selection
if there was a corresponding secret key available. In
experimenting with --edit-key in v1.0.7 I find that I can now
change the owner trust level of public key to "ultimate", even
if no corresponding key is present (making calculated and owner
trust indicated as u/u), making it possible to give ultimate
trust to someone else's public key on my keyring.

Since my previous understanding was that "ultimate" was reserved
for the keyholder (hence requiring a corresponding secret key),
my question is:

When (and why) would someone assign an owner trust level of
"ultimate" to someone else's key? I'm suspecting that this may
have something to do with the now obsolete '--trusted-key'
option (but I'm not sure), and which I had thought was really
only beneficial for those that didn't want to keep their secret
key online.

I had searched through the mail list archives but only came up
with one person's response to another's question as to why this
was now allowed, in which he indicated they should read the
Release Notes (NEWS) to find out. I've read them, too, along
with the man page, but haven't found a clear answer.

If someone could fill me in, or direct me where to look, I would
appreciate it greatly!

Thank you in advance for the enlightenment, and have a GREAT
day!

--Dave

=====
David D. Scribner
IT Consulting & Services
CompTIA Linux+, Network+, A+ Certified
Ph: (817) 461-4018        eFax: (630) 214-7769
dscribner_at_bigfoot.com  http://www.bigfoot.com/~dscribner/
GnuPG/PGP: 3172 7408 58CA D9C2 F697  950F 9DDC 7AC7 91EC 5F06

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