What is the benefit of signing an encrypted email

[Hauke Laging]

Am Mittwoch 12 Januar 2011 17:15:48 schrieb Daniel Kahn Gillmor:

> If enigmail were to default to signing everything, then it would sign
> messages for people that they have not thought about.  As a result, that
> weakens the meaning of their signature, to the point where even if they
> *have* thought about and decided to sign any given message, the fact
> that their signature is attached thoughtlessly to so many other messages
> makes it dubious.

Thus it makes sense to use different keys for

a) usual ("not thought about") email, just as a first hard line of defense 
against forgery

b) serious, valuable signatures

That's why I would like to have a standardized description for keys which 
tells the other one what they are used for (and what not...) and in what kind 
of environment:

1) testing
2) webmail (used on untrusted systems)
3) used on normal-security but generally trusted systems
4) smartcard
5) used in a high-security environment only

This category would have to be certified, too, of course.


Hauke
-- 
PGP: D44C 6A5B 71B0 427C CED3 025C BD7D 6D27 ECCB 5814
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