gpg: WARNING: Using untrusted key!

[David Shaw]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 08:59:34PM -0800, Melissa Reese wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> On Wednesday, March 16, 2005, at 8:49:01 PM PST, you wrote:
> 
> > It means that you have "--trust-model always" set. GnuPG is warning
> > you that it isn't checking trust.
> 
> Thanks! I'll remove that option from my configuration file. For some
> reason, I was under the impression that I needed that option if I
> wanted to encrypt messages to keys that I haven't yet signed or
> assigned any trust to, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

No, as you discovered, you can still encrypt to any key you like
(though GnuPG may ask "are you sure").  --trust-model always is really
a special case for use in special situations (scripts or situations
where the trust is checked outside of GnuPG).  It completely bypasses
all trust and signature checking and assumes all keys are fully
trusted.

David