hashed user IDs [was: Re: Security of the gpg private keyring?]

[Robert J. Hansen]

On 3/9/2011 10:42 PM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
> Which brings us back to creating a pseudonym, using Tor (or other
> anonymising services), getting a disposable mail drop (or using
> alt.anonymous.messages) and going from there.  At the bare minimum.

Which brings us back to the elephant in the middle of the room: as far
as I can see there's no consensus on a use case for this feature.

Some people have a knee-jerk reaction to their email addresses being in
any searchable database and want their emails obfuscated.  Against this
threat, the proposed feature doesn't work: email addresses don't offer
enough entropy and the mechanism could be brute-forced.

Some people think they're going to take over the People's Republic of
Berkeley in a military coup and need to be able to deny their
connections to each other.  Against this threat, the proposed feature
doesn't work very well: while you could conceivably come up with an
email address with high enough entropy, it's easier to just use
anonymous services and dead-drop emails.

Has a use case been articulated for this feature, along with how this
feature would substantially advance the use case?  Because if not, one
really needs to be.