Revoke a key - What is with the decrypted messages?

[David Shaw]

> On Fri, 23 Nov 2007, David Shaw wrote:
>   . . .
> >  . . .         Revoking the key only
> > stops new use of the key - old messages are still okay.

On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 03:14:29PM -0500, reynt0 wrote:
> Just a maybe picky question:
> Does "stops new use" mean absolutely, like mechanical
> prevention, stops new use, or does it mean something like
> "stops by a social process", ie like knowledgeable users
> won't use it anymore?

Both, really.  It's a social process in that a revocation just adds a
note to a key that says "don't use this".  It's mechanical in the
sense that all OpenPGP software respects this flag, so the user
doesn't get consulted about it.

David