FAQ: seeking consensus

[Stefan Claas]

Vincent Breitmoser wrote:

> > It would be nice if you can add to the keyserver list also the
> > mailvelope.com keyserver,
> 
> I concur keys.mailvelope.com is a fine keyserver today. However, you might
> want to consider:
> 
> > because it requires users to authenticate their keys against the keyserver
> > with an received encrypted email
> 
> An "encrypted" verification email in no way, shape or form "authenticates"
> a key any more than an unencrypted email.  It may seem like it should at first
> glance, but it really doesn't if you think through the attack scenarios.

Well, at least than it is an additional protection layer, which is nice to have.

> > and it also allows keeping third party signatures, compared to Hagrid.
> 
> This property also makes it susceptible to flooding attacks, and Mailvelope
> doesn't make use of third party sigs itself.

I think they changed it a while ago. Before one could submit keys, once
they were already on the keyserver. Now it requires again a comformation
email.

And it is true while you can't sign keys with Mailvelope the Key Manager
however shows them.

> I talked to Thomas (from Mailvelope) the other day, and he said he would
> either want to make their implementation more abuse resistant (which I assume
> means dropping third party sigs as well), or decommissioning it altogether in
> favor of Hagrid.

I think that the Mailvelope keyserver is a nice for people who are in need of
CA or classic WoT signatures. So they should IMHO keep it.

Regards
Stefan

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