Group use of keys

[Atom 'Smasher']

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, Mike Edwards wrote:

> Hi!  I have a public key that I share with our customers and the secret 
> is on my keyring.  I have another person in my department that needs to 
> be able to decrypt files sent by our customers that have been encoded 
> with my public key.  IOW, we want a single public key with either a 
> shared secret or separate secret keys for the same public key.  Are 
> either scenarios possible?
=============================

it's easy for everyone to use the same key, and let everyone use their own 
passphrase for it.

1) "edit-key" and reset the password to something impossible. this ensures 
that everyone will change it.

2) export the secret key and give copies to everyone who needs it.

3) tell them that the passphrase is "pbrtavzHc0ZSRjEKsSIAdutLL6" (or 
something comparable) and tell them how to change it... they *will* change 
it.

4) you still have your copy, just reset your own passphrase after you 
export a copy with the impossible passphrase.

although it will work just the same, i would recommend that the UID 
identify it as a group (Customer Service), not an individual (Bob), but 
that's really for ideological reasons.

btw, how do you get your customers to use pgp?!?!


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