openPGP vs x509

[Atom 'Smasher']

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> My opninion is, that the hierarchical X509 structur is more efficient
> because not every client has to know about a special certificate. On the
> other side,
======================

i would argue that it's less efficient, largely because there's a single
point of failure (the CA).


> I have no idea how this should work with pgp-keys in reality.
========================

here's how i picture it:

let's say you connect to https://my-server.com and that certificate is
signed with my PGP key. if you have my key "installed" in your browser,
and marked as "trusted", then you get a secure connection. otherwise, you
get a pop-up box asking you if you'd like to accept, examine or discard
the certificate.


> To encrypt a connection normaly the opponents publickey is used
> to encrypt and the secretkey is used to decrypt. This means, that a
> server have to know all public keys of clients connecting to it. A
> handshake between the server an client maybe solve this prob.
=======================

my understanding of SSL/TLS is that the client can authenticate the
server, but the server has no way to authenticate the client (via
SSL/TLS).

in practice, i connect to https://paypal.com and i want to be VERY sure
that i'm connecting to the correct server. the server has no need to
authenticate that the key on my end ~really~ belongs to me... that's what
my login credentials (username/password) are for.


        ...atom

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