newbie question about identities

Neil Williams linux@codehelp.co.uk
Fri Oct 3 21:12:02 CEST 2003


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On Friday 03 Oct 2003 10:14 am, Stewart V. Wright wrote:
> --fingerprint' remains constant, but you can change ids.  Take my key
> for example.  I have 4 different ids and at least 2 of them will not

Which makes 0xb3334559 difficult to retrieve sometimes. It took a little=20
searching before I could find it to verify a signature declared initially a=
s=20
0x35DB7472 which is a subkey.

http://sks.dnsalias.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=3DStewart+V.+Wright&op=3Dvi=
ndex
and then searching for 35DB7472.

It would be handy if you mentioned the public keyid 0xb3334559 in your=20
signature line in all signed emails - hkp:// keyservers don't contain the U=
ID=20
that matches your current signature but at least it gives readers a headsta=
rt=20
on finding your key. Better still would be a simple page on a website=20
mentioned in a sig or GnuPG comment allowing the full key to be downloaded =
in=20
ascii armour.
(Mine's on the codehelp.co.uk site but it's a plain key and doesn't have an=
y=20
features that cause problems on hkp:// keyservers so I wouldn't think the=20
page is needed much.)

There's no string specifying a location in the GnuPG signature comment, the=
=20
subkey ID is not on hkp:// keyservers and your email address isn't found on=
=20
sks.dnsalias.net keyserver either (which tends to be able to cope with keys=
=20
that get corrupted/ignored by other keyservers). sks does have the key, but=
=20
searching by name is always my least favourite option - there are so many=20
matches usually that it takes time to find out if you've got the right one.

> Also, there are umpteen keys on the key servers with my name (id)
> attached to them (really should have learnt about revoking all those
> years ago!) but only two are valid at the moment.

Some appear to be revoked but none match the signing subkeyID of this messa=
ge.
http://www.pgp.uk.demon.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=3Dindex&search=3DStewart+V.=
+Wright


=2D-=20

Neil Williams
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
http://www.codehelp.co.uk/
http://www.dclug.org.uk/
http://www.isbn.org.uk/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/isbnsearch/

http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=3D0x8801094A28BCB3E3

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