[newbie] Revoking vs deleting public keys

[Adrian von Bidder]

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On Monday 04 August 2003 23:44, Ediprogrammer@aol.com wrote:
> When do you recommend revoking versus deleting a public key? What does
> revoking a key do, exactly? Thanks.

The important (and often annoying) thing with public key cryptographics: on=
ce=20
you publish a key, there's no way of unpublishing it. Even if you could=20
delete your key from all keyservers, there's bound to be someone having it=
=20
cached locally who will go and upload it again.

=46or this, revoking was introduced: instead of deleting the key, you add a=
=20
special signature to it telling people 'don't use this key anymore' (with=20
current keys, you can even give a reason for revocation, so you can=20
differentiate between keys you just don't use anymore, userids you don't us=
e=20
anymore because the email has changed, and keys that got compromised).

Once revoked, the key will be around, but people won't use it (note that it=
 is=20
not a technical impossibility to use the key, but just a standards-mandated=
=20
way the software behaves).

greetings
=2D- vbi

=2D-=20
random link of the day: http://fortytwo.ch/sienapei/naezahcu

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