UID order, UID printed by default in gpg-1.06

Bernd Haug mailinglisten@berndhaug.net
Tue Sep 17 20:21:01 2002


Greetings,

I'm new to this list. Hello. :)
Sorry for my English, I'm not a native speaker.

I got a question about the order in which UIDs are displayed:
I got a Keypair on which I have 2 UIDs - private and work.

Since we (pity) got no mail encryption policy at work, I use the
key(s) mostly for private matters.

Nevertheless, I added (= after creating the key) the work UID for
cases I need some more security on the official address.

Now, the Name directly associated w/ the private Key is the private
address, so (just to make the point - I don't know if I just made
myself clear), and the job addr is in a uid field.

$ gpg --list-secret-keys --with-colons
sec:...:Bernd Haug (Graz.at.eu -- http\x3a//www.berndhaug.net)\
    <haug@berndhaug.net>:...
uid:...:Bernd Haug (Systems administration IICM Software\
    Technology @ TU Graz, Austria) <bhaug@ist.tu-graz.ac.at>:
$

With the pubkey, however, the job addr is on the PK, and the private
one is just a UID.

$ gpg
pub:...:Bernd Haug (Systems administration IICM Software Technology @\
    TU Graz, Austria) <bhaug@ist.tu-graz.ac.at>:...
uid:...:Bernd Haug (Graz.at.eu -- http\x3a//www.berndhaug.net)\
    <haug@berndhaug.net>:
$

I guess this is mainly a cosmetic consideration, since the alias w/
the private addr is also printed when checking sigs, but still I would
like the order by priority of the uses of the key; call me anal
retentive if you must.

On the other Hand, I wouldn't bet that that mixup doesn't bring social
engineering problems. Could someone with sociological and/or
psychological knowledge bring clarity here?

Interesting fact: Even if the order seems to be correct in the secret
key, I still get the uid w/ the job address printed out when I'm asked
for my passwd for signing.

Have I put my point understandably?
And can tell me what I can do about it?

Yours, Bernd