newbie question about identities

[Atom 'Smasher']

> > according to [my understanding of] the documentation, it says that you can
> > have multiple identities sharing a key-pair (which is correct), and it
> > seems to imply that that those identities are isolated from each other
> > (which seems to be incorrect).
>
> Um, I don't remember seeing that or getting that impression, but if
> you can quote the section (and even rewrite it) I'm sure the doc
> maintainers would be interested...
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http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html#AEN282

		Adding and deleting key components

	Additional user IDs are useful when you need multiple identities.
	For example, you may have an identity for your job and an identity
	for your work as a political activist. Coworkers will know you by
	your work user ID. Coactivists will know you by your activist user
	ID. Since those groups of people may not overlap, though, each
	group may not trust the other user ID. Both user IDs are therefore
	necessary.

that's the part in the handbook that seems to imply that it's OK to just
add an identity to an existing key-pair, and everything will work out fine.
as i'm having my suspicions confirmed by the responses, that is not quite
fine when identities have to be hidden from each other, although it is
fine if the identities do not (socially) conflict with each other.

maybe illustrating the concept of multiple UIDs (with one key-pair) using
an employee and an activist is the problem...

i think there should be some explicit mention in the handbook that any
identities sharing a key-pair can easily be associated with each other,
and if two (or more) identities have to remain isolated from each other
they MUST NOT share a key-pair. in the current version of the manual (1.1)
i don't see anything that explains that, but the example of the
employee/activist really seems misleading....


        ...atom

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http://smasher.suspicious.org/fs1r  Yamaha FS1R

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