Making the case for smart cards for the average user

[MFPA]

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Hi


On Monday 6 April 2015 at 5:04:09 PM, in
<mid:5522AE79.2030208 at adversary.org>, Ben McGinnes wrote:


> Great plan ... how does the shell know that the angle
> brackets are a part of the GPG UID format?

I was referring to the way the email address is passed by an MUA to
GnuPG to search for a key, which I don't imagine involves a shell.
Specifically, I asked the OP to reconsider his decision not to include
angle brackets around the email address in his "email address only"
simplified UID format. He reconsidered and added the angle brackets.

DKG has raised a broader issue: keys exist with a UID containing an
email address not surrounded by the conventional angle brackets, which
causes searching for an exact match on the email address in the way
the GnuPG man-page prescribes (by enclosing that email address in
angle brackets) to fail. He has simply proposed that the absence of
angle brackets in the UID should not cause the email address match to
fail. I see that as entirely reasonable.



> If I run these commands currently:

> gpg -k foo at example.org
> gpg -k <foo at example.org>
> gpg -k "foo at example.org"
> gpg -k "<foo at example.org>"

> The first, third and fourth all work, but the second
> complains, as it rightly should, because bash uses <
> and > for other purposes, specifically manipulating
> STDIN and STDOUT.

Fair enough. But they are not all equivalent. The string being
searched for by numbers one and three does not contain opening and
closing angle brackets, whereas the string number four is trying to
match does include them.

And as you say, the second is not valid because < and > are special
characters; presumably they should be escaped with a backslash, or the
whole string enclosed in quotes as in number four.



> So I think you might find it to be
> something that can't be fixed within GPG.

I think DKG's suggestion will fix it within GPG.


- --
Best regards

MFPA                  <mailto:2014-667rhzu3dc-lists-groups at riseup.net>

Puns are bad but poetry is verse.
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