key question

[John Clizbe]

MFPA wrote:

>> I never understood how anyone would want to use PGP for e-mail privacy,
>> and, subsequently, keep the public key a secret!  I don't see any reason
>> why a person would keep his key off the public keyservers, short of
>> preventing spam.  And you know what, he would get spammed anyway.
> 
> I don't think there is much evidence of spammers harvesting email
> addresses from keyservers but you would expect it to happen to an
> extent.

We've discussed keyserver SPAM for a bit over five years among the development
team as well as on the Enigmail list.  Keyserver SPAM happens. Addresses are
harvested. We've tested and documented it. However, the quantity of keyserver
SPAM is statistically indistinguishable from that attributable to random noise.

That's the reason several of us downplay it's significance. It's a drop in the
bucket compared to the general firehose of SPAM.

-- 
John P. Clizbe                      Inet:John (a) Mozilla-Enigmail.org
You can't spell fiasco without SCO. hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net  or
     mailto:pgp-public-keys at gingerbear.net?subject=HELP

Q:"Just how do the residents of Haiku, Hawai'i hold conversations?"
A:"An odd melody / island voices on the winds / surplus of vowels"

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