alternate ids in key

Joseph Bruni jbruni@mac.com
Fri Jun 20 07:11:02 2003


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Short answer:  multiple email addresses.

For instance, at work I have two valid email addresses -- a short one 
using only part of my name and a longer one using my full name. Both go 
to the same mailbox. Rather than send people two keys, I can send a 
single key with both IDs in it. That way, no matter which email address 
they use when sending me a message, the same key is used to encrypt the 
message.

Similarly, you may have multiple mailboxes for various ISPs, etc. You 
can just add all your email addresses to one key. Email clients, when 
looking for a valid key, will try to match the email address you 
supplied in the header with the email addresses in the keys in your 
key-ring.

You may prefer to have different keys for each email account, but 
that's up to you.


On Thursday, June 19, 2003, at 09:46 PM, Carlos Arenas wrote:

> i am trying to figure out why someone would want to have additional 
> id's in their key... can anyone provide me with hypothetical scenarios 
> or point me in the right direction?
>
> thanks in advance.
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