Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:05:21 + MFPA wrote: I can't speak for other people, but I can for me. Take a look at the UIDs on my key, which is 0xC7C66ADF3DB6D884. And also, take a look at my master key 0x2188A92DF05045C2 that I signed the other key with. Each of those e-mail addresses on my keys are ones that were already associated with my real name. I had given each of those addresses to family, friends, associates, businesses, or a combination of them. Not one of those accounts had given me any anonymity, and each had been shared outside of people I knew personally. By uploading a key with those addresses on it, does that mean I gave up privacy that I already had? No. It looks to me as if the answer is yes. Unless each person who had one of your email addresses already knew the other addresses before seeing them on your key, they now have extra information about you. And the addresses have jumped from shared outside of people [you] knew personally to published in a universally-accessible location. However minor/negligible or unimportant you may consider it, that's a reduction in privacy. You are, of course, assuming all of my contacts know what PGP is, how to use a keyserver, and have fetched and examined my key. Although I have potentially disclosed my e-mail addresses to the whole world, my actual disclosure has been less than had I posted those e-mail addresses to a web page or handed a copy of my key UIDs to whomever. But you know what? I don't care. I created those UIDs with the belief that if I shared them with one person, I shared them with the world. I intentionally made that information public, which is different from accidental disclosure. Also the use of a keyserver in my case was good, because I don't have any means of distributing my key electronically other than by e-mailing my key to every person that may request it. So a keyserver fits the way I want to work. - -Paul - -- Privacy is good. Use PGP. +-+ | PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 | | PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 | +-+ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iQGcBAEBCAAGBQJLox97AAoJEJhBiuhgbQLIgEAL/1hXd6DAMcX+goDdipUMt1Yd 5dqnSKbGsC0Rp9Ewa2aZTPzfb4AyAdhjugp+2oX17+47Ijz8CgRP5iCSzEwhW6gl JqKWrKL13f88vN97iauBI/TYiUoEBpMFvreYlu0X8g7qGK9WN1ul4SfFUNaBbXJt /OXfACs7PbSUSN8XvqprOHV+p9uAFNpLIjIYpKZpt4GzhjIF7ifg7fBSw8VdXXBI qahG0c6OqFBU10kJgZlHOM+ZSoqlS9B3M3DR54DLmgwNOhzFkOu5lgOpURY9FrZP 4XYt5hasn/FapiUh5qk8A0QRSLrXUyM7jgntK6KwIFHmurss+eyZRfxBnzveVVbR M2WM9k+AyQnpWwjpxeAR2qQAAjljBDj5TuAEYwlXw6dBb/eQAUcr3SmEdSUDx9BV Q2x37xMN5191xEYqVjNT5FtQko2wGCFSA4qWRbvi+DXV0KVGbTW1N2FBXLtQS1Gc QtndM+4MIf9UkLMnUYJriDnQmgOPiQmJAJzi8gnhuQ== =hLHd -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Friday 19 March 2010 at 6:54:06 AM, in mid:4ba31f8e.1050...@gmail.com, Paul Richard Ramer wrote: On Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:05:21 + MFPA wrote: It looks to me as if the answer is yes. Unless each person who had one of your email addresses already knew the other addresses before seeing them on your key, they now have extra information about you. And the addresses have jumped from shared outside of people [you] knew personally to published in a universally-accessible location. However minor/negligible or unimportant you may consider it, that's a reduction in privacy. You are, of course, assuming all of my contacts know what PGP is, how to use a keyserver, and have fetched and examined my key. OK, I should have qualified they now have extra information about you with potentially or access to. Although I have potentially disclosed my e-mail addresses to the whole world, my actual disclosure has been less than had I posted those e-mail addresses to a web page or handed a copy of my key UIDs to whomever. The lower level of spam from publicising your email addresses on a keyserver compared to web page suggests the first of these is true (although that may be related to ease of extraction of email addresses). I'm not sure how you would go about measuring the second. (-; But you know what? I don't care. I'm clear that this doesn't bother you. I created those UIDs with the belief that if I shared them with one person, I shared them with the world. Of course, but it doesn't have to be that way. I do not see that users of openPGP gain anything at all from this public exposure of their private details, if their key could be usefully be made publicly available without. I intentionally made that information public, which is different from accidental disclosure. Yes it is. Also the use of a keyserver in my case was good, because I don't have any means of distributing my key electronically other than by e-mailing my key to every person that may request it. So a keyserver fits the way I want to work. Well, you *could* include it in every email you send out; or use an email auto-responder, post it on a web page, post it to BigLumber, etc and use a signature notation (or a note in a comment line or an email footer) to link to it. But most of these options probably fit the way of working you describe less well than using a keyserver. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com Confusion is always the most honest response -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS6N28qipC46tDG5pAQosPwP/T1UBiDz3i0w3bob+Yd//OwxLQHvWyhnI +kRzUO2SWTdqbntSZBWlVJXiWeNcB5d8cV9AYbf48TUrqVMV5tHzdMrm3iiOwP4f rzGNWbN717TECS+R4ZIE+L6e2foYD3iQSmj5cDtBWpok+OZtaViRRRnVbb+40VvQ VlLKjQrgf/0= =7B90 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Wednesday 17 March 2010 at 12:58:37 AM, in mid:pine.gso.4.61.1003161106110.25...@dionne.cs.albany.edu, reynt0 wrote: On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:49:32 + MFPA wrote: . . . When the reader is Big Brother, or a potential employer or blackmailer etc., that might matter. When the reader is a random stranger, I prefer to think it doesn't. I'm confident I don't post anything that should prompt anybody to identify and come after me. . . . Of course, if only one person subscribed to the list is using a gmail address, Google will have the opportunity to run their analytical algorithms on all posts, and add information they find about content, interests, attitudes, etc to the profiles they try to maintain about everyone in the known universe. Unfortunately, even if nobody subscribes to the list with a gmail address we have no way of knowing if anybody archives their mail to one. Anyway, the list archives are available various places on the internet, some of which don't make the best job of hiding people's email addresses; Google (or anybody else) have the opportunity to analyse the posts there. And isn't their business model based on making all that info conveniently usable for anyone in the known or unknown universe who has a few dollars to partner with them or maybe even just plain pay for it? Yes, their old don't be evil motto should have been suffixed with (do as we say, not as we do). (-; Unfortunately, refusing to email people on gmail addresses, as advocated at www.google-watch.org/gmail.html and other places is ineffective, since the recipient can simply give you a different address and set it to forward to their gmail account. Using https://ssl.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbwssl.cgi rather than www.google.com as your search site feels as if it should be more private but scroogle's lack of anything labelled privacy policy is of concern. I have been appreciating the comments by MFPA (who seems to be in England?, a country with its own problems about personal privacy, cf www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597 ) as an expression of careful fastidiousness about privacy. Yes, we are spied on by all sorts of entities, from police and local government to agencies of the national government to private entities running petrol stations, car parks, shopping centres, etc. I always think the correct response to seeing a sign like, this forecourt is monitored by CCTV with ANPR, would be to cover your number plates before entering and uncover them after leaving. We are routinely asked for completely irrelevant personal details when signing up for utility or banking services or when applying for a job, and many people are still daft enough to supply them without question. As well as spying on us, the UK government and its agencies have a record of not protecting the information it holds. See, for example, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7103566.stm http://www.securitypark.co.uk/security_article263344.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7704611.stm http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2229271/176-government-breaches http://news.softpedia.com/news/Yet-Another-Data-Leak-from-the-UK-Ministry-of-Defense-94403.shtml These breaches alone make it vital to be as careful as reasonably possible when sharing your personal information, and not to share anything the other party cannot demonstrate is necessary. Giving a unique email address each time, for example, helps to identify who is failing to safeguard your data and should not be trusted. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com Don't cry because it is over - smile because it happened -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS6E54aipC46tDG5pAQoh8QQAk75SZm2x2+t/+9AtUzYQ8vJRKEmA7E4I K0yLgZKblIVcE8tfO2ZvPM3gS8sYAV8Suxj0Y2mila0aVjIH/YF1OEGVlf7FATv4 JHXZ91x/S4N53z67tiSbsz/YgMoKJRSd67md9oPhJDCAKaor30y02xou0fcy9veq SaO7qHDA9/Q= =fVEB -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Tuesday 16 March 2010 at 6:02:15 AM, in mid:4b9f1ee7.9000...@gmail.com, Paul Richard Ramer wrote: On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:49:32 + MFPA wrote: I don't understand the comment that they were never private information. They will have been private information from their inception up until the time you publicised them or published them. I meant that at the time that I decided to include them into my key's UIDs, I had already shared those e-mail addresses a lot. I see what you mean, but I would still consider them to be private information. I have a record of numerous people's email addresses and phone numbers but each is a piece of private information appertaining to the person it can be used to contact. Given the current system, I think that it would be good to educate new adopters that an e-mail address in the UID is optional. So do I. That doesn't only apply to anonymous entities. For example, is today's John Smith the same John Smith I communicated with last week? Well, unless you have a way to prove who John Smith is, he is about as anonymous as a pseudonymous entity. That's what I meant: the fact of it being his real name rather than a pseudonym makes no difference. Understood. I think that private dissemination within a public venue is a better description than upload publicly and download privately. It also has the feel of quite a catchy slogan. (-; Indeed. The UID hashing idea, that I read about during the life of this thread, would be an additional option to accommodate an increased range of privacy goals. Possibly that particular niche is too marginal to be worth implementing, but it shouldn't be dismissed without consideration. Because that niche might be to marginal, I recommended that making a working keyserver with those features would be the way to go. Then, if the usage is high enough, get the other keyservers to implement it. If you (or someone else who is interested) have the right skills, you could download the SKS keyserver code that is located at http://sks-keyserver.googlecode.com/files/sks-1.1.1.tgz and begin hacking it. Then after you have created working code, you could try to get it integrated into the existing codebase. That obviously makes sense. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com Put knot yore trust inn spel chequers -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS59cfKipC46tDG5pAQpVbgP+JCkJpwt0cNSInmRB4mB+egOsUfN9WaIy wEvnYTia+IeuWuPx7FMcYARVH+UCitOsvcnHmjg7pYvGcjnXiFqGzlSVL4J4rIgk 3BjpEbRn6hNc5lnFSYGATkjIUP+Xii7E173z/qBWA/zl4m5ngWnhKMoyhA0Yr+LC vuxcjrJL/c8= =YhGS -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:49:32 + MFPA wrote: . . . In fact, just by posting to this mailing list we have given up some privacy or anonymity. The nature of the way we write, what we think, the experiences that we relate--all of these reveal something about ourselves. When the reader is Big Brother, or a potential employer or blackmailer etc., that might matter. When the reader is a random stranger, I prefer to think it doesn't. I'm confident I don't post anything that should prompt anybody to identify and come after me. . . . Of course, if only one person subscribed to the list is using a gmail address, Google will have the opportunity to run their analytical algorithms on all posts, and add information they find about content, interests, attitudes, etc to the profiles they try to maintain about everyone in the known universe. And isn't their business model based on making all that info conveniently usable for anyone in the known or unknown universe who has a few dollars to partner with them or maybe even just plain pay for it? The concept of personhood built in to European culture (and its American derivatives) in general presumes anonymity of the inner self. That is part of why it is interesting to watch things now, as the combination of decreased locational community in the industrial+ age and increased access to electronically-mediated self-expression results in mindless Facebook/etc displays, and to wonder what cultural adaptations might arise. European extensions of privacy protections to electronic activities being one example of adaptation. I have been appreciating the comments by MFPA (who seems to be in England?, a country with its own problems about personal privacy, cf www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597 ) as an expression of careful fastidiousness about privacy. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Monday 15 March 2010 at 7:54:03 AM, in mid:4b9de79b.3050...@gmail.com, Paul Richard Ramer wrote: If you knew more about how I shared those e-mail addresses, you might conclude differently. OK I think that I disclosed less than you may have gotten the impression that I did, since those addresses were never private information. I don't understand the comment that they were never private information. They will have been private information from their inception up until the time you publicised them or published them. Personally, I prefer to give an e-mail address, and then filter messages based upon the sender. But that is my preference. I don't believe it is The One True Way. :-) It is simplest, and almost certainly most common, to just have a small number of addresses. Multiple addresses and/or disposable addresses can be a useful tool, but they can add complexity with no real advantage if their use is not properly thought out. If in the future I want to go underground with a pseudonymous identity, then I will create a PGP key specifically for it. And in that eventuality, do you see the attraction of optionally hashing email addresses and names in UIDs, so that somebody who knows your email address can find your key but somebody who inspects your key gains no information about you from it? Probably not. I might consider it, though. I would most likely create a UID like your's--pseudonym and nothing more. Then use the key with e-mail accounts that would never have information about my real identity. This doesn't mean that the hashed UIDs idea couldn't be good for someone else. I see the target user as somebody who wishes to keep their personal contact details private, but wants openPGP users who already have their contact details to be able to discover their key. Not wishing to reveal my email address in my key, when faced with all the literature saying I should, was one of the main reasons I didn't adopt PGP the first couple of times I looked at it. Since I have no reason to expect my thoughts on this to be unique, I believe the hashing option for the information in UIDs would remove an obstacle that deters some people from using openPGP. Anything that connects two or more messages together, whether it be a key ID, pseudonym, or secret pass phrase or sign, is less than perfect anonymity. Even speech patterns will give less than perfect anonymity. Perfect anonymity is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. It can also be impractical, e.g. if I don't have a way of knowing that I am communicating with the same person each time, how can I know that I am not talking to an enemy. Even if you know it is the same person, you could still be talking to an enemy. You may not realise they are a spy working for a rival organisation, for example. If I am to have multiple communications with an anonymous entity, I have to know that the last anonymous entity and the one that I am talking to now are the same. There has to be something identifying. It doesn't matter what it is, but it must be there. Would I risk sharing secret information with the wrong person? That doesn't only apply to anonymous entities. For example, is today's John Smith the same John Smith I communicated with last week? Perfect anonymity is like perfect privacy. They are both impossible to have if we are to live our lives while having relationships and associations. What is perfect anonymity? If I recognise somebody by sight as being somebody I have seen before but know nothing about, are they no longer perfectly anonymous to me? Is somebody with many short-term relationships and associations more anonymous than somebody with fewer but long-term? One is known to more people but each knows less about them. Perfect privacy means not knowing anyone or seeing anyone. Because once someone has seen you, learned information about you, or seen where you have gone, you have lost some privacy. You no longer have perfect privacy. True. In fact, just by posting to this mailing list we have given up some privacy or anonymity. The nature of the way we write, what we think, the experiences that we relate--all of these reveal something about ourselves. When the reader is Big Brother, or a potential employer or blackmailer etc., that might matter. When the reader is a random stranger, I prefer to think it doesn't. I'm confident I don't post anything that should prompt anybody to identify and come after me. Similarly, perfect anonymity will fail once someone can connect multiple messages or activities to an identity (whether or not that identity is a pseudonym, real name, or something else). How is that of consequence until they make the link between the identity and the person (or people) behind it? Knowledge that John Smith engages in certain activities is of no use until the John Smith in question
Re: key question
Hello MFPA, I couldn't respond to your post for a while. So here it is. On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:38:18 + MFPA wrote: I never asserted that you said the key's originator owned the information stored in the key. I was quoting the context of what your reply about the originator having some rights was about. I would never try to insert words into your mouth. I just wanted anybody reading this after the event to be clear the quoted line about owning was not anything *I* have said. Okay. So we both misunderstood each other. Problem solved. Really, I am not interested in talking about what the law says. The law may be right, or the law may be wrong. I don't want to know what the law thinks, I want to know what you think. The legal aspect is an integral part of the answer to your question; it demonstrates that rights to privacy and to an element of control over one's personal information are not something I dreamt out of thin air. Whatever different views people may have on moral or ethical rights, there are situations where processing/storage/dissemination of personal information is the subject of an established body of legislation and legal precedent. All that is open to question is the extent and nature of privacy rights that may exist beyond the narrow set enshrined in law and the slightly wider set in documents such as ECHR. The issue of law is not an integral part of the answer to the question of what should be. It is an integral part of the answer to what is. If I were to ask you whether every day should be like Christmas, you would likely respond that every day couldn't be like Christmas. Sure, every day couldn't be like Christmas, because of the way people are, but that doesn't mean that that is the way things ought to be. The reason I wanted you to discuss what you believe without regard to the law is because the law is just another man's opinion. I was asking for only yours. For the record, I don't believe that the key holder should upload the key if the key's originator doesn't want Seeing as we are framing this in terms of rights, do you believe the holder has a right to upload in these circumstances but should not exercise that right? It depends. Are we talking about ethical rights or lawful rights. I think the key holder has the ethical and lawful rights to use and distribute the key if the key's originator doesn't forbid him. If the keyholder is forbidden, he has the lawful right, but not an ethical right. But the key holder shouldn't have to ask the originator what he may do with the key. The key holder should, by default, have freedom. But if the originator doesn't want his key disseminated, he should say so. And by the way, I apply this rule to me. But I don't believe the originator has a /right/ to prevent the key holder from sharing it. Morally and ethically, I disagree. To use an example with phone numbers: say I had a personal friend who was an insurance broker with a teenaged daughter and elderly parents. I would suggest it's perfectly in order for me to pass to a third party my mate's business number. I definitely have no moral or ethical right to pass on his daughter's or parent's numbers or his personal number. Some would argue he has a right to give me a good beating if I did. So a buddy's business number is public information, and you can share it if you like. But a /public/ key, which by default is considered publicly shareable information, isn't. I get it! So it goes like this. A business telephone number is considered by most to be shareable, and because of that, it is ethically shareable. A public key is considered by most to be shareable, and because of that, it isn't ethically shareable. In practical terms, the originator currently has no means to prevent this sharing, whether or not he has a right. In a certain narrow set of circumstances, there could be an argument for legal redress if the originator's personal information was shared. Interesting. ... [C]urrently has no means Sounds like you may want some delicious DRM. I don't believe the keyserver (or the church) is responsible for another's actions. But I wanted to see whether you thought the keyserver should be responsible. I also don't think a webhost should be deemed responsible if somebody posts unlawful material on a site or forum that happens to be hosted on their servers. I agree. I don't believe in guilt by association, including unintentional association. The rights that you are asserting are similar to copyrights. They both restrict the copying and dissemination of the information associated with them. I cannot conceive of anything other than a presumption of privacy in respect of the personal information usually present in the UIDs, and have always been amazed at the number of people displaying it openly on their public keys. I can't speak for other people, but I can for me. Take a look at the UIDs on
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Saturday 13 March 2010 at 11:15:32 AM, in mid:4b9b73d4.4090...@gmail.com, Paul Richard Ramer wrote: The issue of law is not an integral part of the answer to the question of what should be. It is an integral part of the answer to what is. I see what you mean, but I would say it is integral to both. If I were to ask you whether every day should be like Christmas, you would likely respond that every day couldn't be like Christmas. Sure, every day couldn't be like Christmas, because of the way people are, but that doesn't mean that that is the way things ought to be. Although it isn't really that simple. For example in the UK, the vast majority of shops are closed on Christmas day and most people don't go to work (except for essential services, hospitality, and the few shops/petrol stations that are open). Whether people ought to be wage-slaves, giving up most of their time to their master in return for barely enough to live on, is another question. The reason I wanted you to discuss what you believe without regard to the law is because the law is just another man's opinion. I was asking for only yours. Fair enough. I think I gave both. For the record, I don't believe that the key holder should upload the key if the key's originator doesn't want Seeing as we are framing this in terms of rights, do you believe the holder has a right to upload in these circumstances but should not exercise that right? It depends. Are we talking about ethical rights or lawful rights. I think the key holder has the ethical and lawful rights to use and distribute the key if the key's originator doesn't forbid him. If the keyholder is forbidden, he has the lawful right, but not an ethical right. Yes, assuming the key showed no personal information. Depending on the jurisdiction and the circumstances, the key holder *might not* have the lawful right to distribute the key originator's personal information. But the key holder shouldn't have to ask the originator what he may do with the key. The key holder should, by default, have freedom. Why? The personal information in the key UIDs is that of the originator, not the holder. If the key reveals no personal information, then I agree. But if the originator doesn't want his key disseminated, he should say so. If the key reveals no personal information, then I agree. But why would the holder need to be told the originator doesn't want his personal information circulated without his permission? And by the way, I apply this rule to me. Which rule? You've already stated that you don't believe the holder should upload the key if the originator doesn't want, so presumably you mean that you would tell somebody if you didn't want them to pass on or upload a key you created? But I don't believe the originator has a /right/ to prevent the key holder from sharing it. Morally and ethically, I disagree. To use an example with phone numbers: say I had a personal friend who was an insurance broker with a teenaged daughter and elderly parents. I would suggest it's perfectly in order for me to pass to a third party my mate's business number. I definitely have no moral or ethical right to pass on his daughter's or parent's numbers or his personal number. Some would argue he has a right to give me a good beating if I did. So a buddy's business number is public information, and you can share it if you like. But a /public/ key, which by default is considered publicly shareable information, isn't. What do you mean by default? As far as I know the public in public key simply refers to the fact that it *can* be made public without compromising the security of the encryption or digital signatures. That does *not* mean that the personal information usually included in key UIDs for ease of use is publicly shareable. I get it! So it goes like this. A business telephone number is considered by most to be shareable, and because of that, it is ethically shareable. A public key is considered by most to be shareable, and because of that, it isn't ethically shareable. A business telephone number *is* considered by most to be ethically shareable. Key UIDs often contain personal contact details and/or aliases. Other people's personal contact details are *not* considered by most to be ethically shareable, and certainly not ethically publishable. Interesting. ... [C]urrently has no means Sounds like you may want some delicious DRM. Nothing drastic enough for most to consider it DRM, IMHO. It would be enough for me if keyservers honoured the no-modify flag (with suitable originator-verification and appropriate measures when synchronising) subject to the exception you mentioned previously where somebody revokes a signature they previously placed on that key. Those who desired that anybody could freely upload their keys to servers would simply unset the
Re: key question
MFPA wrote: On Saturday 6 March 2010 at 8:55:48 AM, you wrote: On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:52:02 + MFPA wrote: (b) the person owns the information has the right to control how it is disseminated, and This was someone's re-interpretation of my point. Spot the extra ? Hello MFPA, I never asserted that you said the key's originator owned the information stored in the key. I was quoting the context of what your reply about the originator having some rights was about. I would never try to insert words into your mouth. The data subject does have various rights concerning the personal information that is about him. This is the reply you gave to Robert J. Hansen. I have asked about what you believe the limit of the rights of the originator is. I didn't ask this because I am trying to twist your words to make it seem as though you believe that the originator has a right by law to prevent the key holder from disseminating it. I used this quote, because I believe that it states, in your own words, what you have been saying, either directly or by implication, during this whole discussion thread. The concept of *owning* your personal information makes little sense. [snipped the rest of the paragraph] You have began by answering a question that I never asked. I have only asserted that you believe that the originator has some rights. I never used the word own. I used the word rights. Exactly as far as everything else that would fall under the basic right to privacy (described in Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights as the right to respect for private and family life). The OECD's Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data is a slightly more international view. http://www.oecd.org/document/20/0,3343,en_2649_34255_15589524_1_1_1_1,00.html The use, storage or dissemination of personal information is the subject of specific laws in many places, as mentioned above and linked from earlier in the thread. I'm referring to the personal information that is often present in key UIDs. Others may wish to extend similar discussion to cover the key ID/fingerprint, which I view as problematic. The key ID/fingerprint is not personal information in and of itself. But if the key is on a server, the de facto standard for key UIDs leads to, in most cases, personal information being revealed to anybody in possession of the key ID. Really, I am not interested in talking about what the law says. The law may be right, or the law may be wrong. I don't want to know what the law thinks, I want to know what you think. You say that the key's originator should control the dissemination of the key to the keyserver, (I would point out that other opinions are available and have been shared in this thread. Also, the conditional should is important since anybody in possession of the key has the *ability* to upload it whether they should or not.) I know what the others have said--I have read every posting in this thread. As for should, I intentionally chose that word. I say that if the key's originator does not disseminate said key to said keyserver, nobody else is in a legitimate position to make that decision on their behalf. If the originator actively *wanted* their key to be on that server (or network of servers), they would probably have uploaded it there. The originator may have been unaware of that server's existence. They may simply have taken no action regarding keyservers. They may have considered a particular keyserver (or network) and made a decision that they did not want their key on it. They may not want their key on any keyserver. The point is, without referring to the key originator, a third party cannot know their intentions and should not have the arrogance to presume. The OpenPGP standard and GnuPG can both be seen to concede that the key originator could have some say in the matter: the keyserver-no-modify flag was defined quite a while ago in RFC 2440 as meaning the key holder requests that this key only be modified or updated by the key holder or an administrator of the key server, and has long been set by default in GnuPG. Unfortunately, I don't see evidence that any keyservers honour this flag. For the record, I don't believe that the key holder should upload the key if the key's originator doesn't want the key in some public venue (forget the keyservers, it's about public availability). But I don't believe the originator has a /right/ to prevent the key holder from sharing it. but what about from the keyserver? Isn't the keyserver unwittingly sharing the key without the originator's permission? Difficult to answer. Good. I accomplished my goal of making you think about your position. :-) Say, for example, I was to print out your photograph, name, address, phone number, etc. and display it on a public noticeboard in the church. Would you consider that the noticeboard was unwittingly
Re: key question
Hello MFPA, I will summarize the rights and restrictions that I believe you say that an OpenPGP user has with another's public key. I will call this the rules of Key Rights Management or KRM for short. Rights of the Key Originator * Can restrict the uploading of the key to a public venue, especially public keyservers. * Can restrict how and where a key is uploaded, if uploading is permitted. * Can restrict the sharing of the key with someone other than the originator. * Can control the Original Signature Content of the key. [1] Privileges of the Key Holder * Free to use the key when communicating with the originator. * May keep multiple copies of the key so long as the key holder takes steps to protect the key from unauthorized copying and distribution. * None more. You should be glad the originator was lenient enough to allow you to have the first two. [1] Original Signature Content is the signatures that are attached, at the will of the originator, to the key. By default no one may add signatures to this Original Signature Content without the owner's permission. -Paul -- PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
MFPA wrote: In each of these cases, John Doe made the mistake of thinking that he could keep his personal information in his key, and that he could keep his key off the keyservers. If John were to make the wisest decision about keeping his personal informaton secret, wouldn't he choose to not include this information in a key that is probable to end up in a public venue? You are assuming he realised it was probable. The benefit of hindsight will presumably lead him to proceed differently in future. Initially, John may not have even known he *could* create a useable key without his valid email address. He might have been used to trusting his those in his closed circle. He might not have experienced or considered how easy it was to make mistakes resulting in inadvertent key upload. He may have read about the keyserver-no-modify flag and assumed the feature would actually protect his key from accidental or malicious publication. I am assuming that a person inhabited with the desire to protect his personal information would analyze the safety of using a UID with the information that he wants to protect. A person worried about the disclosure of his personal information is unlikely to say, Huh. I guess I don't have an option concerning my privacy. I am also assuming that the user has intelligence and judgment. If the user is stupid and foolish, nothing can save him. By saying that he must have intelligence and judgment, I mean that he must be able to realize that he needs to be competent in the tool that he is using. How could a person of judgment believe that he could have the minimum knowledge of how to use cryptography and his OpenPGP tool, and believe that he will successfully protect his privacy? The person concerned with the releasing of his personal information might make the mistakes that you have said. But the kind of person that you are talking about has minimal knowledge in OpenPGP and the tools to implement it and has less than adequate reasoning. I have been naive before. But I didn't begin using GnuPGP while I was still naive about it. I studied how cryptography and OpenPGP worked, how to use gpg, and how to use it with e-mail and files. I won't claim that I am better or more knowledgeable than some of the other smart people on this mailing list, but I will say that I am smart enough to teach others how it works. Actually, it was my goal to understand the concepts and the tools well enough to teach others. You don't have to have the most understanding in order to teach others, but you do have to have /enough/ understanding in what you want to teach in order to teach others. Naivety in how to protect your privacy leads to having no privacy. Take for example how it is that many young people share the intimate details of their lives on social networks, chat rooms, et cetera. They are naive and *foolish*. While training these kids on how to protect their privacy could lead to many of them abandoning such unsafe practices, this doesn't mean that someone who already wants privacy would think that those same unsafe practices were safe. That is what I was saying in the previous posting. Someone who desires privacy will do what it takes to get it. That includes dispelling his naivety with knowledge. As for the person not realizing how easy it would be to accidentally upload a public key to a keyserver, I was never that naive. I was aware of it from the beginning. My key wasn't on the keyservers, initially (I chose to upload it later). But I knew that if I was careless it could wind up there. Maybe it is that I am an above average user. Maybe. Maybe it is just that I exercised judgment. Maybe I expect others to do the same. -Paul -- You are free to rip me off. Just remember to credit me. --self PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:52:02 + MFPA wrote: (b) the person owns the information has the right to control how it is disseminated, and The data subject does have various rights concerning the personal information that is about him. Hello MFPA, How far do the rights of the key holder go? You say that the key's originator should control the dissemination of the key to the keyserver, but what about from the keyserver? Isn't the keyserver unwittingly sharing the key without the originator's permission? And if the keyserver should control dissemination, what are the limits of the originator's rights? If the originator does have rights to control copying and sharing, are there any fair use rights for the person who has a copy of the public key? Should these rights of the originator be enforced by some governing body, or should they be merely courtesy or suggestion? -Paul -- You wouldn't send all of your mail written on the back of postcards would you? Then why would you send your e-mail the same way? http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html +-+ | PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 | | PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 | +-+ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
Hello MFPA, During this whole debate, you have assumed one thing in your argument that I don't believe anyone has pointed out as being flawed. You have assumed that the person (I will call him John Doe) would have decided to create a UID that contained the personal information that he wants to keep private. If the person wanted badly to keep his e-mail address, or his e-mail address and his name, private, why would he put them on his key. Especially, when he knows that all it takes is one slip up or deliberate upload to send his public key flying across the Internet and into a keyserver to remain there forever. Here are three examples of John Doe wanting to keep the privacy of his personal information and still use PGP. I am using these examples, because they are usage cases that you have used in your arguments. The usage cases are as follows: (a) John Doe doesn't want to disclose his e-mail address; (b) John Doe doesn't want to disclose his name or e-mail address; (c) John Doe doesn't want to disclose his name or e-mail address, because he fears that his government will send him to a gulag if they catch him. Usage Case (a) -- John Doe knows that he doesn't, under any circumstances, want his e-mail address to be disclosed to the public. So instead of creating a UID without his e-mail address, he creates one with his e-mail address. He gives his key to only those that he wants to communicate with, which are his friends, family, coworkers, and even business clients. Everything goes well for John. His key is off the keyservers, and it isn't posted anywhere public. One day while John is fetching someones keys, he decides, just for kicks, to search for his key on the keyserver. John is horrified. His key is on the keyserver. Usage Case (b) -- John Doe knows that he doesn't, under any circumstances, want his name or e-mail address to be disclosed to the public, because he only wants to communiate with a select group of people. So instead of creating a UID without a real name and e-mail address, he creates one with his name and e-mail address. After all, he will only use it with people he trusts. For communicating with the web at large, he uses a pseudonym and a disposable e-mail address. But even though John is separates communications with people he knows from people he doesn't know, he still doesn't want his personal information on the Internet. For this reason, John is careful to ensure that his key isn't publicly available. One day, a friend tells John that he wants to apologize to John. The friend tells John that he accidentally uploaded John's key to the keyservers. Usage Case (c) -- John Doe knows that he doesn't, under any circumstances, want his name or e-mail address to be disclosed the public, because he doesn't want the government to discover that he is using PGP. So instead of creating a UID without his name and e-mail address, he creates one with his name and e-mail address. John is careful to share his key with only those that he trusts. Everything goes well with John (that is, things are only as good as it can go for the poor guy). His key isn't anywhere the government could look for it. One day, one of John's trusted family members, who lives in a freer country, accidently uploads John's key to a keyserver. The family member doesn't even realize that he did this. And John doesn't know that this was done. -- In each of these cases, John Doe made the mistake of thinking that he could keep his personal information in his key, and that he could keep his key off the keyservers. If John were to make the wisest decision about keeping his personal informaton secret, wouldn't he choose to not include this information in a key that is probable to end up in a public venue? -Paul -- Please use my PGP key when sending me e-mail, if you can. PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Wed, Mar 03, 2010 at 06:44:25PM +, MFPA wrote: On Wednesday 3 March 2010 at 4:16:21 PM, you wrote: On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 03:53:27PM +, MFPA wrote: There are privacy issues, especially if user-ids on the key contain email addresses. In some cases, the authorities knowing an individual used encryption could be a problem. There are issues of tradecraft, then. Using OpenPGP as a tool for committing crimes is kind of stupid. I was referring to the case where the individual was in a country that prohibited or restricted the use of strong encryption. Yes, I thought that was what you meant. If the state in which one communicates prohibits encrypted communication, and one communicates over an encrypted channel, then one has already committed one crime (in the eyes of that state), whatever the content or purpose of the communication may have been. Were I the individual, I would think long and hard about using a tool which would require me to defeat its features that create identity labels (however false or information-poor) and carry them along with the message. I would be drawn toward tools whose methods carry no identity data themselves. You can't accidentally misuse a feature that isn't there. -- Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer mw...@iupui.edu Friends don't let friends publish revisable-form documents. pgpf3FFEhJTrB.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:30:21AM +, MFPA wrote: No impact on the web of trust. But your online presence (and possibly that of somebody else with the same name) can feed into decisions about employing you or doing business with you, often/usually made by people who don't actually understand the information they find. I'm just waiting for a few businesses to be sued for making decisions based on failure to understand what we can actually know about someone from e.g. the signatures that happen to appear on publicly served copies of his certificate. Maybe then they'll wise up. -- Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer mw...@iupui.edu Friends don't let friends publish revisable-form documents. pgpx31WJoe1R2.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 03:53:27PM +, MFPA wrote: There are privacy issues, especially if user-ids on the key contain email addresses. In some cases, the authorities knowing an individual used encryption could be a problem. There are issues of tradecraft, then. Using OpenPGP as a tool for committing crimes is kind of stupid. There are more secure methods for a closed community to secure its lines of communication. If one chooses the wrong tool for a job, or chooses to use it incorrectly, no blame attaches to others for the consequences of one's choice. I feel there is a strong assumption among OpenPGP users that our community is, *ahem*, open. -- Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer mw...@iupui.edu Friends don't let friends publish revisable-form documents. pgpDQqoKbNvWl.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 03/03/2010 11:16 AM, Mark H. Wood wrote: On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 03:53:27PM +, MFPA wrote: There are privacy issues, especially if user-ids on the key contain email addresses. In some cases, the authorities knowing an individual used encryption could be a problem. There are issues of tradecraft, then. Using OpenPGP as a tool for committing crimes is kind of stupid. Can we not go down this line of argument, please? Not everything that the authorities frown on is criminal, and not every action in opposition to the law of some given state is necessarily immoral. I'm sure this isn't true about $yourowncountry, but please consider the situation for citizens of $thatevilcountry. OpenPGP is a tool for encrypted and/or authenticated communications. If we were to declare from the outset that OpenPGP is not (and will never be) a good tool for use by people struggling against oppressive regimes, we would strand a significant proportion of people who have a strong legitimate need for encrypted and authenticated communication. What a waste that would be! There are more secure methods for a closed community to secure its lines of communication. If the community in question is a geographically-distributed one, and the tools are used wisely, OpenPGP can actually be a pretty good choice. I feel there is a strong assumption among OpenPGP users that our community is, *ahem*, open. Speaking as one user of OpenPGP, I do not share your assumption. The Open in OpenPGP refers to the nature of the standard: the standard is public, well-documented, and peer-reviewed. Anyone is free to implement it, and there are public discussions around the nature of the standard itself. The Open in OpenPGP does *not* refer to any broader sense of transparency among its userbase, or even a requirement for implementations of the standard itself to be open (GPG is free software, but other implementations of OpenPGP are not). Regards, --dkg signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 3/3/2010 1:25 PM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote: There are issues of tradecraft, then. Using OpenPGP as a tool for committing crimes is kind of stupid. Can we not go down this line of argument, please? I agree that OpenPGP implementations can be useful tools for the advancement of human rights -- but I also think Mark is (almost) right. It isn't that using OpenPGP implementations to commit crimes is kind of stupid: it's that *naive* use of these implementations is kind of stupid. But that just means OpenPGP implementations are no different than any other kind of tool. OpenPGP is a tool for encrypted and/or authenticated communications. If we were to declare from the outset that OpenPGP is not (and will never be) a good tool for use by people struggling against oppressive regimes, we would strand a significant proportion of people who have a strong legitimate need for encrypted and authenticated communication. I fully agree. I would just add that we as a community need to emphasize the importance of good tradecraft, in addition to the importance of email crypto. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 3/3/2010 1:44 PM, MFPA wrote: I feel there is a strong assumption among OpenPGP users that our community is, *ahem*, open. Is it not also a reasonable assumption, that those who use and promote privacy-enhancing software will value and respect privacy? It is not reasonable that their definition of privacy will overlap with yours, no. I don't get to define what privacy means for anyone other than me. You don't get to define what privacy means for anyone other than you. Since there is no shared definition of privacy, there can be no reasonable assumption that people who use and promote what *you define to be* privacy-enhancing software will value and respect privacy *according to your definition*. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Sun, 28 Feb 2010, David Shaw wrote: On Feb 28, 2010, at 4:20 PM, reynt0 wrote: On Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Robert J. Hansen wrote: . . . The perfect is the enemy of the good. Just to note, did RJH actually intend to write ...the enemy of the good enough., which I believe is the usual quote? The two are rather different ideas, even more so if morality has been included as an aspect of the discussion. Voltaire. Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. Rob's translation is as good as any I've seen. I would understood the Voltaire as a comment about people who use betterment (cf Progress) as justification for change, but I see your point. What I was thinking of was the Worse is Better theme, cf http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html and http://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html . And FWIW, to be thorough, I'll toss in: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire and http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_B%C3%A9gueule :-) ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 27, 2010, at 4:54 PM, Grant Olson wrote: Doh! Originally sent off list... Maybe Robert got a psychic vibe... On 2/27/2010 2:21 PM, MFPA wrote: I don't want such a vote. Whether somebody chooses to include an email address in their UID is up to the individual. I have not seen anything that convinces me it is better for me to include one. It sounds like you're using the software to do the opposite thing that many people do. I think digital signatures are utilized much more than encrypted communication. Yes. And digital signatures are about authenticating to a real person, and not anonymity. No. Many (most?) digital signatures are used to authenticate a system, rather than a real person. For an OpenPGP-specific example, it is widely used to authenticate software packages, both when distributed as source, and also built-in to things like RPM for distributing binaries. Outside of OpenPGP, there is SSL, etc. If you don't want to publish your email for the anonymity/privacy reasons you've outlined, then you probably don't want to use your legal name either. And it looks like you don't. Which is fine for encrypting documents. But it renders two key features of digital signatures meaningless. Authentication and Non-repudiation go out the window. How do I authenticate that an anonymous entity is really an anonymous entity? It's not used in the same way, but it is far from meaningless. You may not know who MFPA is, but if MFPA signs his messages (as he does), you can verify that the pseudonymous entity MFPA that you were speaking with yesterday is still the same pseudonymous entity MFPA you are speaking with today. Lets assume among your circle of friends, who know each other personally in real life, you sign off on each others keys. And I somehow know one of your friends, and we sign each others keys. To me, it's a meaningless assertion for someone to claim that they've verified that you're the real MFPA. That doesn't mean anything to me because you're anonymous to me. It also doesn't mean anything if you've signed off on someone's key. What does it mean to me that MFPA vouched for someone else's identity? Another meaningless assertion. That isn't how the web of trust works. Well, it *can* work that way for you, since you can choose who to trust and who not to, but that's not the information encoded in there. I know dozens of people on the net. I've exchanged encrypted mail with them, I've worked with them, in some case for years... and I've never met them in person. For all I know, they're actually a group of people sharing the same email address and using a name that looks like a real one, and not obviously pseudonymous like MFPA. Think about what it really means in the web of trust when you see a signature. The signature only maps back to a real person indirectly. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Paul Richard Ramer wrote: . . . Speculation isn't any more progress than an idea is action. Speculation buttressed with facts leads, in time, to progress. But speculation, . . . And speculation often has the very useful effect of stimulating search for new facts where previously none had been believed necessary. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: Fwd: Re: key question
On Sun, 28 Feb 2010, MFPA wrote: . . . no way to prove you're MFPA. So I can't sign your key. If you knew me personally, you could. And as I already said, do you know MFPA's not my legal identity? There used to be somebody in my town who had officially changed his name to FREFF. (Never did understand why.) . . . Interesting to see, among some apt comments about identity and presumptions about identity, a little information being leaked. Now all the serious ones, or maybe the merely curious, have to do is to search FREFF--or maybe buy from Google the info Google has about FREFF if nothing can be found easily by a free, ordinary user search--and find out a beginning of how to track down MFPA so they can verify his key in person. :-) Also, IIRC MFPA never made any assertion about his name, though others seem to have assumed it is a pseudonym or etc, which has been interesting to observe as examples of presumption at work. Maybe he just has some four-long-word name so he uses his initials, etc? ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
That isn't how the web of trust works. Well, it *can* work that way for you, since you can choose who to trust and who not to, but that's not the information encoded in there. I know dozens of people on the net. I've exchanged encrypted mail with them, I've worked with them, in some case for years... and I've never met them in person. For all I know, they're actually a group of people sharing the same email address and using a name that looks like a real one, and not obviously pseudonymous like MFPA. Think about what it really means in the web of trust when you see a signature. The signature only maps back to a real person indirectly. David Good points all. Here's what I'm thinking. Imagine I trace path on the web of trust, like with those pgp pathfinders out there. Example one: me - us...@example.org - us...@example.org - us...@example.org - you Now not that it's practical, but I could trace through that. user1 - he's an old college buddy. I ask him how he knows user2. He's been sitting in the next cube over from user1 for twenty years. I ask user2 how he knows user3. Key-signing party. A passport and a driver's license. I ask user3 how he knows you. We've been working on some open source project for years. I could, not that it's practical to do, perform additional verification all of these claims. Example 2: me - us...@example.org - us...@example.org - a...@b.c - you User1 same story. College buddies. User2. Same story. They work together. I ask user2 how he knows a...@b.c. He responds that he's not allowed to disclose the info for privacy concerns. I ask you how you know a...@b.c. You give the same response. Can't contact a...@b.c to ask who he is because it's not a real email. I would argue that those two examples have much different levels of indirectness, since I can't conceivably verify the chain in example 2. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Robert J. Hansen wrote: . . . The perfect is the enemy of the good. Just to note, did RJH actually intend to write ...the enemy of the good enough., which I believe is the usual quote? The two are rather different ideas, even more so if morality has been included as an aspect of the discussion. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
The perfect is the enemy of the good. It's a pretty common engineering maxim. It's not a statement about morality -- or, at least, it wasn't my intent for it to be taken as such. For an excellent engineering example of the difference between perfect and good, compare Project Xanadu to the World Wide Web. Project Xanadu's obsession with getting everything right has massively impaired its adoption. The Web's willingness to say, this is a problem and we don't know how to fix it but we're going to go ahead regardless has been instrumental in its widespread adoption. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 27, 2010, at 3:23 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote: I agree that generally speaking, it's a good idea to put keys on the keyservers. I don't know if that makes it conventional wisdom, or who the arbiter of such wisdom might be, but clearly a very common use of OpenPGP is for encrypted mail. I likewise have suspicions and doubts about conventional wisdom. (You could just as easily say, conventional wisdom is that you can tell a lot about someone by the signatures on their key -- I can see an argument being made for that being conventional wisdom. It's *wrong*, but that doesn't keep it from being conventional wisdom.) You can certainly tell a lot about someone by the signatures on their key. Either directly from the signature or because those signatures point to other keys that have their own signatures, etc. With your permission, may I see what I can find from the signatures on your key D6B98E10? I will of course never post it here or anywhere without your permission. I will send it only to you, off-list. I'm not trying to be evil - just demonstrating that you can derive a lot from signatures on a key. If you do not want me to look, I won't. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 28, 2010, at 4:20 PM, reynt0 wrote: On Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Robert J. Hansen wrote: . . . The perfect is the enemy of the good. Just to note, did RJH actually intend to write ...the enemy of the good enough., which I believe is the usual quote? The two are rather different ideas, even more so if morality has been included as an aspect of the discussion. Voltaire. Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. Rob's translation is as good as any I've seen. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
You can certainly tell a lot about someone by the signatures on their key. Either directly from the signature or because those signatures point to other keys that have their own signatures, etc. With your permission, may I see what I can find from the signatures on your key D6B98E10? Go for it. It's public data. Assuming there's nothing intensely personal in there, I'll pass the results on to the list. My point regarding the signatures don't tell you much -- if anything -- is there is no guarantee that a signer has had any contact with the key holder. It's foolish to make conclusions about someone's social network based on their key material. If I have a signature from a person, it is not a statement that I know that person, that I approve of that person, or that I would ever associate with that person. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re[2]: Fwd: Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi reynt0 On Sunday 28 February 2010 at 9:18:55 PM, you wrote: Now all the serious ones, or maybe the merely curious, have to do is to search FREFF--or maybe buy from Google the info Google has about FREFF if nothing can be found easily by a free, ordinary user search--and find out a beginning of how to track down MFPA so they can verify his key in person. :-) Why not start your detective work from something like email kludges? - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com Versifiers write poems for it. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS4svdaipC46tDG5pAQphNgQAwPh4EWhilhhw5McO99eh2LQPcQViNa+R j6KEct9fyXV5j4wWCbKcPHYgwZSTyZsBjA/kmWA/aQb43s1Ngd0cqnwq9ZzYhNYO Uz9tjwGM3mpX4dLcwetE9kBcsMsSfJBLxZGjAJGjGFdVFFy7G5sFSkU/WO8G3FxG BHdAlo2KM18= =ejuU -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 28, 2010, at 8:09 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote: You can certainly tell a lot about someone by the signatures on their key. Either directly from the signature or because those signatures point to other keys that have their own signatures, etc. With your permission, may I see what I can find from the signatures on your key D6B98E10? Go for it. It's public data. Assuming there's nothing intensely personal in there, I'll pass the results on to the list. My point regarding the signatures don't tell you much -- if anything -- is there is no guarantee that a signer has had any contact with the key holder. It's foolish to make conclusions about someone's social network based on their key material. If I have a signature from a person, it is not a statement that I know that person, that I approve of that person, or that I would ever associate with that person. Understood, and I agree it makes no such statement. However, it does make a reasonably good statement that you were physically located near that person at a certain point in time, roughly what that time was, and roughly where (geographically) it happened. Better than that, though, signatures point to other keys. And self-signatures are signatures, too. I'll send you some stuff. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
Understood, and I agree it makes no such statement. However, it does make a reasonably good statement that you were physically located near that person at a certain point in time, roughly what that time was, and roughly where (geographically) it happened. This is assuming the signature is known to not be someone attempting a credibility attack, or that the signer didn't sign it by accident while intending to sign a different key, etc., etc. I agree that once those assumptions are made you can learn an awful lot, and I agree that these assumptions are usually correct. Not too many people sign keys by accident, or do credibility attacks, etc. Maybe it's an artifact of my upbringing. I see the world as broken up into things you can prove, things you suspect, and things that might be. Signature analysis lets you know a lot of might-bes, and might be a good basis for suspicions, but without those preconditions I think it's pretty hard to prove things. I imagine we're in agreement here. I still look forward to seeing your results. :) ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Sun, 2010-02-28 at 16:06 -0500, reynt0 wrote: On Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Paul Richard Ramer wrote: . . . Speculation isn't any more progress than an idea is action. Speculation buttressed with facts leads, in time, to progress. But speculation, . . . And speculation often has the very useful effect of stimulating search for new facts where previously none had been believed necessary. Naturally, you have to search for facts if you are going to support a new idea. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Jerry wrote: Maybe not totally apropos to this discussion; however, I worked in traffic analysis for several years. If given enough leeway, you would be amazed at the information you can gather about an individual, and at its astonishing accuracy rate. Just listening on various mail forums, I have been able to learn more about certain individuals than they would believe possible, or want known. Its all in knowing (and having the proper equipment and authority) in where to look. UAV Missile Operators don't need to know what the message said; just where You are at the time it is Sent. Radio transmissions are targeted using Huff-Duff GPS; Email is 'targeted' from the kludges. True enemies in 'hot combat' don't care what You're saying; only that You never 'speak' again. ♂ JOHN ;) Timestamp: Saturday 27 Feb 2010, 08:23 --500 (Eastern Standard Time) - -- There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. - --Indira Ghandi -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Public Key at: http://tinyurl.com/8cpho Comment: Gossamer Spider Web of Trust: http://www.gswot.org Comment: Personal Web Page: http://tinyurl.com/yzhbhx iQEcBAEBCgAGBQJLiRz1AAoJEBCGy9eAtCsPTrMIAKF3pduOatVIePKgJxkKKAR7 HymACsEHjfs5gkgXzRcbqpHEtyqGy1TiAoJjAGM6FWVvo7SFvI5yJ2rojIceuv5d uAaUDc6sx7bAgNTFZ+GZJPYBy4kxb6mLbDmutvhChXPaIxPEt+SFhBqqCbD7DICK iXIBpYeNWBWL+w12g6uWGLVF5kgM3IwwSn5VPxbRPyv9uvLng5tAbib+wlUhY+ln DcVihZv3PMHeRqeMS2nqjURlZh4FeLUZoqc7ck3j0oCM8xIG38Aa2Ob7SJdqIXyq rGd3nxrTtUconL8x9Sdd/nZSTar/AuWTdEhgOWZX/eC6i6qUGpOBRXRo5qSy1SU= =0q7a -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 26, 2010, at 12:04 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote: In some cases, the authorities knowing an individual used encryption could be a problem. Why? Because they have a key on the keyservers? If this is what you're worried about, rest easy: there are so many easier ways to learn whether someone uses encrypted email that I can't imagine competent law-enforcement searching the keyservers. For instance, in the United States the authorities can get your email headers without a warrant. That means to, from, subject, routing information, and all the kluges. Check the kluges on this email and I'm pretty sure you'll see kluges related to Enigmail. Presto, at that point people know I'm using a crypto-aware MTA. Do you really mean to suggest that a US authority getting email headers - even without a warrant - is easier than typing a name into a search box on a keyserver? No question that the authority *can* get such headers, but I question the easier. Have you read the various (leaked) guides the ISPs have for delivery of such materials? They are fascinating, but in no way speedy. I'd expect a truly competent law-enforcement agent would get both - order the requested material from the ISP, and while he's waiting for delivery, take the 20 seconds to search a keyserver. (Of course, all this assumes that we're presuming guilt-by-encryption, or at least suspicion-by-encryption, which I don't really buy in any event). In any event, Rob, could you do me a huge favor and clarify what statement you are trying to make here? Jumping into a mail thread late is always fraught with misunderstanding, but, I've re-skimmed the thread, and I'm honestly still not sure what you're trying to say. It seems (and I could be utterly wrong), that MFPA is saying Not everyone wants their key on the keyservers, so please don't automatically send other people's keys there. If the key owner wants the key on the keyservers, he'll send it himself. You seem to be saying This is not based on good logic as I see it, and therefore (something). What's the (something)? That you reserve the right to send other people's keys to the keyserver? That it's foolish to request that other people don't send them? Something else? Or perhaps I mischaracterize both your and MFPA's positions. What am I missing here? David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/27/10 9:58 AM, David Shaw wrote: Do you really mean to suggest that a US authority getting email headers - even without a warrant - is easier than typing a name into a search box on a keyserver? No. You're right, that's clearly easier. However, that only tells you whether someone has the technical capability to use encryption -- much the same way that a shotgun in my closet tells you I have the technical capability to commit murder. Generally speaking, law-enforcement is much more interested in whether a capability is exercised than if a capability exists. Checking the keyserver network reveals the capability; it doesn't reveal if it's been exercised. As a result, the possibility of law-enforcement officers checking the keyserver network doesn't seem to be a strong argument against the use of the keyserver network. The major exception is if you live in a jurisdiction where possession of crypto is itself a criminal offense. If you live in Cuba and you're using GnuPG, then you should not have your key on the servers and you have a perfectly reasonable fear about people uploading your key there. In any event, Rob, could you do me a huge favor and clarify what statement you are trying to make here? Jumping into a mail thread late is always fraught with misunderstanding, but, I've re-skimmed the thread, and I'm honestly still not sure what you're trying to say. His position seems to have shifted. At some points he's said, What's not to agree with in my statement that not everybody wants to put their keys on the keyservers? I fully agree with this. However, he also seems to be advocating the advice of generally speaking, it's a good idea to put keys on the keyservers be changed to generally speaking, it's not a good idea to share public keys without the key owner's explicit permission. This is a pretty big change in the conventional wisdom. Before I'll sign on to that I'll have to see some strong reasoning, and I haven't. It seems (and I could be utterly wrong), that MFPA is saying Not everyone wants their key on the keyservers, so please don't automatically send other people's keys there. If the key owner wants the key on the keyservers, he'll send it himself. MFPA has made it clear his objection applies to any kind of sharing of public keys without the owner's consent. It's not limited to the keyserver network. He considers it the equivalent of passing on someone's home address to a complete stranger. (I would no more deliberately publish somebody's key without their consent than I would pass on their phone number or address.) For myself, I do not send keys up to servers without first checking it with the recipient. This seems like good manners to me. However, I don't view it as mandatory and I don't think we should view it as the appalling breach of morality that MFPA seems to. This is not based on good logic as I see it, and therefore (something). What's the (something)? That the status quo ante is upheld. Status quo ante being, the keyservers are generally a good idea, and generally speaking they should be used, and people should expect their public keys will wind up on them sooner or later, either through their direct action or through the accidents of others. It is not universally applicable advice, but I think that as far as general advice goes it's pretty good. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Saturday 27 February 2010 at 6:11:29 AM, in mid:4b88b791.7000...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote: There is a perceived need for $150 bowls of soup, as evidenced by dozens of high-priced gourmet restaurants in major cities. The existence of a market for a service is not evidence that the service is generally useful or needed. Point taken. In any case, I've never seen a convincing argument *for* including email addresses in the UID of a PGP key. First, the status quo doesn't need arguments in its favor. The status quo exists. *Changing* the status quo is what requires arguments in its favor. I have always been taught to challenge the status quo. Because that's the way we do it is *never* a good reason to continue doing something in a particular way. I understand that showing your email address in the UID makes it easier for people to find your key, the perceived advantage being that this makes it more likely you will receive encrypted mail. My contention is that the de facto standard of revealing email addresses in key UIDs could actually be mitigating *against* the use of encrypted mail, by discouraging people from publishing keys or even from using openPGP in the first place. There is a widespread perception (rightly or wrongly) that exposing your email address publicly on the internet will lead to that email address being spammed into oblivion. The new openPGP user is exhorted to create a key pair using their name and email address as the UID, and to upload this key to a server. That advice, coupled with the default configuration's enforcement of including an email address (or something that appears to be one) clearly has the potential to scare potential users from experimenting with openPGP in the first place. Second, then you don't have to include it in yours. Why are you bringing this up? Because you suggested in an earlier post in this thread that it was somehow acceptable to publish somebody's key to a server without their consent. To me, wantonly publishing other people's contact details appears contrary to the desire to protect personal privacy. I don't care what your UID is, and I don't want you to have a vote in whether I put an email address in mine. I don't want such a vote. Whether somebody chooses to include an email address in their UID is up to the individual. I have not seen anything that convinces me it is better for me to include one. If their key lived at their own website or on an email responder, for example, you could still do this - except the note of the fingerprint and key-id would also need to contain a URL. In which case you're still hosting it publicly, so why not use the keyservers? Because by hosting it yourself, you have control over what signatures and UIDs appear on the published key. Or is that just an illusion? OK OK, the post I was replying to when I started this stated It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. I do not see this statement as any kind of self-evident truth, yet I have been thoroughly taken to task for questioning it. This is not taking you to task. This is listening to your claims, and giving strong arguments against them. Many of the replies I've read in this thread have that character. Others have tended more towards criticising me for holding a different opinion and/or dismissing anything I said. Maybe I'm just being over-sensitive, but I got the impression I had touched some raw nerves somewhere along the way. That said, it is broadly true that it's a good idea to send keys to the keyserver network. The reasons why have already been well-explained. Your reasons why not are either unfounded or debunked. The collective response on this thread has indeed debunked a few myths for me. The main issue I'll never be converted on is the potential privacy problem of publishing somebody else's key to the servers. In your voluminous defense of privacy rights, you've not given any numbers for what fraction of users need or want to keep their public keys private. If you're arguing that the good idea we've advocated is not a good idea, you need to show there are substantial numbers of users who will be negatively impacted. You haven't. If I was able to show that, those who need/want such privacy would be making a poor job of trying to enforce it. I don't care how many users this affects. For me, what matters is that any key I encounter *could* relate to one of them. Whoever's details may on a key (or in the body of an email, or anywhere else), I have no business publishing them. You've talked about the danger of reputation being slandered by implication of association: but as David Shaw has pointed out, if someone wants to do that there are much easier ways to do it than with keys. True. I only mentioned it because a contact experienced business problems as a result of this. You've
Re: key question
On Feb 27, 2010, at 11:22 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote: On 2/27/10 9:58 AM, David Shaw wrote: Do you really mean to suggest that a US authority getting email headers - even without a warrant - is easier than typing a name into a search box on a keyserver? No. You're right, that's clearly easier. However, that only tells you whether someone has the technical capability to use encryption -- much the same way that a shotgun in my closet tells you I have the technical capability to commit murder. Much as the email headers do in your example. If the mail is not encrypted, the headers just show that it might be. In practice, headers won't show much as the majority of modern mail programs have the capability for encryption of one sort or another, even without add-ons. It's rarely exercised, of course. As a result, the possibility of law-enforcement officers checking the keyserver network doesn't seem to be a strong argument against the use of the keyserver network. The major exception is if you live in a jurisdiction where possession of crypto is itself a criminal offense. If you live in Cuba and you're using GnuPG, then you should not have your key on the servers and you have a perfectly reasonable fear about people uploading your key there. In any event, Rob, could you do me a huge favor and clarify what statement you are trying to make here? Jumping into a mail thread late is always fraught with misunderstanding, but, I've re-skimmed the thread, and I'm honestly still not sure what you're trying to say. His position seems to have shifted. At some points he's said, What's not to agree with in my statement that not everybody wants to put their keys on the keyservers? I fully agree with this. However, he also seems to be advocating the advice of generally speaking, it's a good idea to put keys on the keyservers be changed to generally speaking, it's not a good idea to share public keys without the key owner's explicit permission. This is a pretty big change in the conventional wisdom. Before I'll sign on to that I'll have to see some strong reasoning, and I haven't. I agree that generally speaking, it's a good idea to put keys on the keyservers. I don't know if that makes it conventional wisdom, or who the arbiter of such wisdom might be, but clearly a very common use of OpenPGP is for encrypted mail. If you want encrypted mail, putting your key on a keyserver is very helpful in reaching that goal. The word generally takes care of the exceptions (as there always exceptions for one reason or another). So basically, yes, if you're using OpenPGP, keyservers are great. With regards to the second statement, you give a great reason yourself a few paragraphs up: If you live in Cuba and you're using GnuPG, then you should not have your key on the servers and you have a perfectly reasonable fear about people uploading your key there. Is that not a good reason to request that a key stay off the keyservers? I don't find the behavior *behind* this reason very good, as if someone lived in a place where encryption was banned, they'd be foolish and naive to think that their key would stay off the keyservers merely because they requested it - one accident, and it's published, and no way to withdraw it. People who live in places where encryption is illegal need to do a lot more than simply not send their keys to a keyserver if they want to remain safe. Personally, I don't find most don't-publish arguments (spam, traffic analysis, etc) compelling, and I correspondingly do send my key to the keyservers (in my case, it would be particularly silly not to). However, I never send anything to the keyservers (or publish otherwise) if it isn't mine. I don't know what their situation is, and it's not up to me to decide it for them. Even if I did know their situation, as in the Cuba example above, and disagreed with them on how to handle their key, it still is not my key, and not my decision to make. I don't know if that makes it conventional wisdom, but I have acted that way since I became involved in the OpenPGP world many years ago. Whether it's wise or not, I'd at least hope it's common politeness. Keys ending up on keyservers contrary to the desires of the key owner has been a problem for a long time. Note the addition of the no-modify flag when OpenPGP was first published as an RFC in 1998. That was added after experience with PGP 2. The whole point of that flag is to only allow the owner to publish their key. Similarly, note that the PGP Global Directory only allows key uploads from the key owner, avoiding this problem. The earlier PGP certserver had the capability, though I don't believe it was always turned on. Clearly this is enough of a problem that work was done to avoid it. For myself, I do not send keys up to servers without first checking it with the recipient. This seems like good manners to me. However, I
Re: key question
On Feb 27, 2010, at 2:21 PM, MFPA wrote: I have always been taught to challenge the status quo. Because that's the way we do it is *never* a good reason to continue doing something in a particular way. The status quo has something going for it: it works. 95% of all new ideas are awful and should be discarded. New ideas are how the status quo changes for the better, but that doesn't mean we should throw out the status quo just because an idea comes along which happens to be new. My contention is that the de facto standard of revealing email addresses in key UIDs could actually be mitigating *against* the use of encrypted mail, by discouraging people from publishing keys or even from using openPGP in the first place. It's an interesting idea, but I don't see any facts to back it up. How many users are dissuaded? Is this a major concern, or not a concern? What does the published literature say about it? And so on, and so on. Speculation is great, but speculation isn't fact -- and we need to change the way we do things based on facts, not on speculations. We can agree on facts, but our speculations will likely not overlap very much at all. That advice, coupled with the default configuration's enforcement of including an email address (or something that appears to be one) clearly has the potential to scare potential users from experimenting with openPGP in the first place. The same way the shotgun in my closet clearly has the potential to be used as a murder weapon. Potential != actuality. All manner of potential things do not come to pass. Before we change the way we do business, I'd like to know that we're changing to address a real problem, not merely a potential problem where no one really knows if it's a real problem or not. The world has enough interesting problems to solve without us having to go off chasing ghosts. Because you suggested in an earlier post in this thread that it was somehow acceptable to publish somebody's key to a server without their consent. I don't think I said it was acceptable. I would find it to be in poor taste, myself, if it were done deliberately. However, I don't think it would amount to a moral or ethical failing. Because by hosting it yourself, you have control over what signatures and UIDs appear on the published key. Or is that just an illusion? Illusion. Let's say that Joe downloads your key from the web page. Joe then syncs his entire keyring with the keyserver. (This is a feature in PGP; you can also do the same thing with GnuPG, if you don't mind getting a little crazy with awk and sed scripts.) Your key then gets on the server, and... etc. Maybe Joe is doing it deliberately. Maybe he has a misconfigured installation. Maybe he thinks he's doing you a favor. Whatever. The point is, the world is full of Joes, and sooner or later your key will wind up on the server. Once you make any public release of your key, it is only a matter of time until that key winds up on the keyserver network. You can either keep your public key very secret and only give it to people who have need-to-know and make them sign a nondisclosure agreement written in the blood of their children, or you can accept the fact that it will be put on the keyserver and take appropriate steps. The collective response on this thread has indeed debunked a few myths for me. The main issue I'll never be converted on is the potential privacy problem of publishing somebody else's key to the servers. This is an argument from emotional conviction. That doesn't mean it's invalid or inappropriate or that you shouldn't have this response -- don't get me wrong. I like emotions; emotions are pretty cool things. I just don't like arguing from emotional conviction, because I either share in the response or I don't. If I do, then you don't need to say anything because I'm already on your side. If I don't, then you don't need to say anything because you can't persuade me into having that particular emotional response. I either have it or I don't. But just like there's nothing you can say to *me*, there's nothing I can say to *you*. The instant you say I will never be converted!, well, okay: thanks for letting me know. I won't try to persuade you, because you've made it clear you won't be persuaded. If I was able to show that, those who need/want such privacy would be making a poor job of trying to enforce it. So the lack of evidence is, itself, evidence? That sounds more like a conspiracy theory. I don't care how many users this affects. For me, what matters is that any key I encounter *could* relate to one of them. This is an idealistic view of the world. I like idealism. I admire idealism. I just think it's impractical and destructive. What you're saying here is, even if the advice were sound for one million users, and destructive to the privacy of just one, I still would not change because any key I
Re: key question
On Feb 27, 2010, at 3:02 PM, David Shaw wrote: Much as the email headers do in your example. If the mail is not encrypted, the headers just show that it might be. In practice, headers won't show much as the majority of modern mail programs have the capability for encryption of one sort or another, even without add-ons. It's rarely exercised, of course. Yes and no. I think the presence of an Enigmail header, for instance, is probably more indicative of encrypted traffic than just someone's key being present on a server. Still, this is kind of a side show. What started this was MFPA's contention that just by having your key on the keyserver network you could be bringing yourself to the attention of government investigators. When a murder victim is found, the police start looking for the murder weapon. They don't start by looking at all possible murder weapons and hope to find a murder victim nearby. Likewise, if the police find encrypted traffic on a suspect's laptop they will begin to search for the originator of the traffic. They're not likely to start by rounding up the usual suspects found by harvesting the key server. There are exceptions to this rule. I mentioned Cuba, where possession of crypto is itself a crime (or was, last I heard: if there are any Cubans on the list, I would love to know if this is still true). That said, exceptions to a rule are expected -- there are few rules so general they do not admit exceptions. I agree that generally speaking, it's a good idea to put keys on the keyservers. I don't know if that makes it conventional wisdom, or who the arbiter of such wisdom might be, but clearly a very common use of OpenPGP is for encrypted mail. I likewise have suspicions and doubts about conventional wisdom. (You could just as easily say, conventional wisdom is that you can tell a lot about someone by the signatures on their key -- I can see an argument being made for that being conventional wisdom. It's *wrong*, but that doesn't keep it from being conventional wisdom.) However, on the scale of conventional wisdom, where on one end there's never get involved in a land war in Asia and never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line, [1] and on the other there's the signatures on a key tell you a lot about a person, I think the conventional wisdom of generally speaking, it's a good idea to put keys on the keyservers is closer to the former category than the latter. :) Admittedly, I am no arbiter of what's conventional wisdom. The preceding is just my own personal interpretation of what prevailing CW is. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes With regards to the second statement, you give a great reason yourself a few paragraphs up: If you live in Cuba and you're using GnuPG, then you should not have your key on the servers and you have a perfectly reasonable fear about people uploading your key there. Is that not a good reason to request that a key stay off the keyservers? I think it's a great example of a clear exception to a general rule. So you are saying I do not do this. And MFPA is saying I think nobody should do this ? Not really. That's a side issue. The real question is this: The status quo is that new users are routinely told, 'generally speaking, it is a good idea to upload your key to the keyservers.' Does this need to change? Where's the problem? He says yes and here's why, and I say, your arguments do not appear sound, and here's why. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Saturday 27 February 2010 at 4:22:27 PM, in mid:4b8946c3.5050...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote: His position seems to have shifted. As the thread has progressed, the posts I'm replying to have shifted from It is a good idea to send your key to the keyservers, to an assertion that it's also a good idea to publish other people's keys whether they want them published or not. At some points he's said, What's not to agree with in my statement that not everybody wants to put their keys on the keyservers? I fully agree with this. However, he also seems to be advocating the advice of generally speaking, it's a good idea to put keys on the keyservers be changed to generally speaking, it's not a good idea to share public keys without the key owner's explicit permission. This is a pretty big change in the conventional wisdom. Before I'll sign on to that I'll have to see some strong reasoning, and I haven't. It seems (and I could be utterly wrong), that MFPA is saying Not everyone wants their key on the keyservers, so please don't automatically send other people's keys there. If the key owner wants the key on the keyservers, he'll send it himself. That is exactly what I am saying. Most peoples keys contain personal contact details and the decision to place that information in the public domain rests solely with the person whose details they are. MFPA has made it clear his objection applies to any kind of sharing of public keys without the owner's consent. It's not limited to the keyserver network. He considers it the equivalent of passing on someone's home address to a complete stranger. (I would no more deliberately publish somebody's key without their consent than I would pass on their phone number or address.) Pretty much, yes. Not forgetting the possible legal implications under data protection legislation in the EU and other places. the keyservers are generally a good idea, and generally speaking they should be used, and people should expect their public keys will wind up on them sooner or later, either through their direct action or through the accidents of others. It is not universally applicable advice, but I think that as far as general advice goes it's pretty good. I don't think it is bad advice when put like that. Maybe the person being advised could be pointed to a summary discussion of pros and cons, and of alternatives to keyservers - but that would probably be information overload. It is definitely good advice to bear in mind that your key may well end up on a keyserver whether you want it to or not. That will feed into the decision of what information to include in your UIDs. I find the attitude that it is OK to publicise somebody else's details without consent abhorrent, and suggestive of a disregard for other people's privacy. Given the importance of personal privacy, it seems to me that it's too easy to accidentally upload the wrong key to a server. I'm not sure if anything could usefully be changed to address this; even if people read confirmations before pressing y when using GnuPG, such mistakes are all-too-easy in other packages and front-ends as well. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com The problem is not that we're paranoid; it's that we're not paranoid enough. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS4mDJqipC46tDG5pAQoYzgP/WP6E+qDRzfdwTVCXrcvXgONsVvXhCAQ8 3FJVYb/TeoLVcm26J88IBQvhECsoI+4RBcMgRVBwXTn0KU8E5PUF+4Or5d3NpuNp RkmuPPOlNUfj6xqMRkylm5pe9kYI8UvDnEGlEOy0XonDJ1Mfq/4aZHpJvy5NHmaK P+aRJ+1cjaE= =NiBO -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Fwd: Re: key question
Doh! Originally sent off list... Maybe Robert got a psychic vibe... On 2/27/2010 2:21 PM, MFPA wrote: I don't want such a vote. Whether somebody chooses to include an email address in their UID is up to the individual. I have not seen anything that convinces me it is better for me to include one. It sounds like you're using the software to do the opposite thing that many people do. I think digital signatures are utilized much more than encrypted communication. And digital signatures are about authenticating to a real person, and not anonymity. If you don't want to publish your email for the anonymity/privacy reasons you've outlined, then you probably don't want to use your legal name either. And it looks like you don't. Which is fine for encrypting documents. But it renders two key features of digital signatures meaningless. Authentication and Non-repudiation go out the window. How do I authenticate that an anonymous entity is really an anonymous entity? That doesn't make any sense. How do I get into a dispute with an anonymous entity about whether he really agreed to do X? And although it does prove message integrity, that, in and of itself, doesn't mean much for an anonymous entity. So a few examples to elaborate. I'm going to use MFPA as the anonymous user who doesn't have a real ID for clarity sake. It's better than anonymous entity. Just to be clear, I'm not really talking about you or making any personal attacks in the examples. You're just the generic guy with the non-identifiable key. Farfetched example. An email from MFPA pops up on the list. My house burnt down. Lost my key. Lost my rev certificate. Here's my new info. Five minutes later, another email from MFPA. That dude generated a fake key. Keep using the old one. The new one is bad! A third email from MFPA. That last dude is lying. Turns out he stole my laptop before burning my house down. Who do we trust? Which key do we use? We have no way of knowing who the real MFPA is, because he was anonymous to begin with. How could I sign your key? It sounds like you don't want anyone to sign it anyway, plenty of other people want to sign keys and build the web of trust. I can't verify your key in any way. You're anonymous. There's no way to prove you're MFPA. So I can't sign your key. Lets assume among your circle of friends, who know each other personally in real life, you sign off on each others keys. And I somehow know one of your friends, and we sign each others keys. To me, it's a meaningless assertion for someone to claim that they've verified that you're the real MFPA. That doesn't mean anything to me because you're anonymous to me. It also doesn't mean anything if you've signed off on someone's key. What does it mean to me that MFPA vouched for someone else's identity? Another meaningless assertion. I'm not really using OpenPGP encryption at all. I may never need to send an encrypted email. None of my real-life friends, family, co-workers use it. Not Cuban, Iranian, or in the Falun Gong. I use it for two things, (1) to post on computer geek mailing lists, and (2) to verify software packages. For (1), I guess I'm not too concerned about digital signatures. The PGP Global Directory is good enough authentication for me. For (2), I actually am. It'd be nice to have the software packages signed by a validated key. If people don't use personally identifying information, the web of trust breaks. The only way for me to actually validate a key is to meet with the software packager personally. And I think many people fall into that camp. Authentication is more important to them than anonymity and encryption. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
This may be a dup - I think the original went out with the wrong From addr MFPA wrote: Hi On Saturday 27 February 2010 at 6:11:29 AM, in mid:4b88b791.7000...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote: In any case, I've never seen a convincing argument *for* including email addresses in the UID of a PGP key. Nor have we seen compelling arguments for their omission as a general rule First, the status quo doesn't need arguments in its favor. The status quo exists. *Changing* the status quo is what requires arguments in its favor. I have always been taught to challenge the status quo. Because that's the way we do it is *never* a good reason to continue doing something in a particular way. It is never a good reason when it is the sole justification. It's a perfectly valid reason when it has evolved from the ideas of a lot of Very Smart People™. I understand that showing your email address in the UID makes it easier for people to find your key, the perceived advantage being that this makes it more likely you will receive encrypted mail. My contention is that the de facto standard of revealing email addresses in key UIDs could actually be mitigating *against* the use of encrypted mail, by discouraging people from publishing keys or even from using openPGP in the first place. An /interesting/ thesis, However, to be taken seriously you need to back it up with more than conjecture. There are plenty of obstacles to the widespread use of encryption in the computing literature without grasping at straws to create more. There is a widespread perception (rightly or wrongly) that exposing your email address publicly on the internet will lead to that email address being spammed into oblivion. The new openPGP user is exhorted to create a key pair using their name and email address as the UID, and to upload this key to a server. That advice, coupled with the default configuration's enforcement of including an email address (or something that appears to be one) clearly has the potential to scare potential users from experimenting with openPGP in the first place. Widespread perception? Indeed? Please quantify. There are over 2.8 million keys on the SKS keyservers with an average of just under 350 new keys added every day.[0] The keyserver SPAM discussion surfaces maybe three to four times per year across three lists. Odds on users will get more SPAM from asking a question on a public mailing list such as this one than they will from that attributable to keyservers. (rightly or wrongly) Or imaginary? Rather than trying to convince us of new obstacles without providing any evidence, you may wish to review what the HCI folks say are the obstacles: Why Johnny Can't Encrypt[1], Why Johnny Still Can't Encrypt[2], How to Make Secure Email Easier to Use[3], and a personal favorite, Secrecy, Flagging, and Paranoia: Adoption Criteria in Encrypted E-Mail[4]. snip If their key lived at their own website or on an email responder, for example, you could still do this - except the note of the fingerprint and key-id would also need to contain a URL. In which case you're still hosting it publicly, so why not use the keyservers? Because by hosting it yourself, you have control over what signatures and UIDs appear on the published key. Or is that just an illusion? Mostly Illusion. You only control the copy you publish or make available. You have control over what signatures appear /until/ someone else has a copy of the key. After that, you rely on their manners and ability to not make mistakes. OK OK, the post I was replying to when I started this stated It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. I do not see this statement as any kind of self-evident truth, yet I have been thoroughly taken to task for questioning it. This is not taking you to task. This is listening to your claims, and giving strong arguments against them. Many of the replies I've read in this thread have that character. Others have tended more towards criticising me for holding a different opinion and/or dismissing anything I said. Maybe I'm just being over-sensitive, but I got the impression I had touched some raw nerves somewhere along the way. Many of the points you argue in this thread have been exhaustively discussed on the list. You could compare this to a novel reading of law taking on a mountain of precedent. It takes more than just the presentation of a case to convince this body. I've seen errant ideas criticized, not any person. The only irritant for me was a breach of email etiquette. That said, it is broadly true that it's a good idea to send keys to the keyserver network. The reasons why have already been well-explained. Your reasons why not are either unfounded or debunked. The collective response on this thread has indeed debunked a few myths for me. The main issue I'll never be converted on is the potential privacy problem of publishing somebody else's key to the
Re: key question
On Sat, 2010-02-27 at 19:21 +, MFPA wrote: There is a widespread perception (rightly or wrongly) that exposing your email address publicly on the internet will lead to that email address being spammed into oblivion. The new openPGP user is exhorted to create a key pair using their name and email address as the UID, and to upload this key to a server. That advice, coupled with the default configuration's enforcement of including an email address (or something that appears to be one) clearly has the potential to scare potential users from experimenting with openPGP in the first place. GnuPG doesn't, at least as of 1.4.10, force you to include an e-mail address in your user ID. It merely requests an e-mail address, and you can just press enter and ignore the request. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
MFPA wrote: Hi On Saturday 27 February 2010 at 6:11:29 AM, in mid:4b88b791.7000...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote: In any case, I've never seen a convincing argument *for* including email addresses in the UID of a PGP key. Nor have we seen compelling arguments for their omission as a general rule First, the status quo doesn't need arguments in its favor. The status quo exists. *Changing* the status quo is what requires arguments in its favor. I have always been taught to challenge the status quo. Because that's the way we do it is *never* a good reason to continue doing something in a particular way. It is never a good reason when it is the sole justification. It's a perfectly valid reason when it has evolved from the ideas of a lot of Very Smart People™. I understand that showing your email address in the UID makes it easier for people to find your key, the perceived advantage being that this makes it more likely you will receive encrypted mail. My contention is that the de facto standard of revealing email addresses in key UIDs could actually be mitigating *against* the use of encrypted mail, by discouraging people from publishing keys or even from using openPGP in the first place. An /interesting/ thesis, However, to be taken seriously you need to back it up with more than conjecture. There are plenty of obstacles to the widespread use of encryption in the computing literature without grasping at straws to create more. There is a widespread perception (rightly or wrongly) that exposing your email address publicly on the internet will lead to that email address being spammed into oblivion. The new openPGP user is exhorted to create a key pair using their name and email address as the UID, and to upload this key to a server. That advice, coupled with the default configuration's enforcement of including an email address (or something that appears to be one) clearly has the potential to scare potential users from experimenting with openPGP in the first place. Widespread perception? Indeed? Please quantify. There are over 2.8 million keys on the SKS keyservers with an average of just under 350 new keys added every day.[0] The keyserver SPAM discussion surfaces maybe three to four times per year across three lists. Odds on users will get more SPAM from asking a question on a public mailing list such as this one than they will from that attributable to keyservers. (rightly or wrongly) Or imaginary? Rather than trying to convince us of new obstacles without providing any evidence, you may wish to review what the HCI folks say are the obstacles: Why Johnny Can't Encrypt[1], Why Johnny Still Can't Encrypt[2], How to Make Secure Email Easier to Use[3], and a personal favorite, Secrecy, Flagging, and Paranoia: Adoption Criteria in Encrypted E-Mail[4]. snip If their key lived at their own website or on an email responder, for example, you could still do this - except the note of the fingerprint and key-id would also need to contain a URL. In which case you're still hosting it publicly, so why not use the keyservers? Because by hosting it yourself, you have control over what signatures and UIDs appear on the published key. Or is that just an illusion? Mostly Illusion. You only control the copy you publish or make available. You have control over what signatures appear /until/ someone else has a copy of the key. After that, you rely on their manners and ability to not make mistakes. OK OK, the post I was replying to when I started this stated It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. I do not see this statement as any kind of self-evident truth, yet I have been thoroughly taken to task for questioning it. This is not taking you to task. This is listening to your claims, and giving strong arguments against them. Many of the replies I've read in this thread have that character. Others have tended more towards criticising me for holding a different opinion and/or dismissing anything I said. Maybe I'm just being over-sensitive, but I got the impression I had touched some raw nerves somewhere along the way. Many of the points you argue in this thread have been exhaustively discussed on the list. You could compare this to a novel reading of law taking on a mountain of precedent. It takes more than just the presentation of a case to convince this body. I've seen errant ideas criticized, not any person. The only irritant for me was a breach of email etiquette. That said, it is broadly true that it's a good idea to send keys to the keyserver network. The reasons why have already been well-explained. Your reasons why not are either unfounded or debunked. The collective response on this thread has indeed debunked a few myths for me. The main issue I'll never be converted on is the potential privacy problem of publishing somebody else's key to the servers. I think most of us agree that the publishing of another person's
Re: key question
On 02/27/10 14:21, John Clizbe wrote: Nor have we seen compelling arguments for their omission as a general rule I think it would be more accurate to say that we haven't seen any arguments that will sway those with strongly held beliefs on either side. Since we're not likely to see them any time in the future, I guess the question at this point is, has everyone had their say yet? Doug -- ... and that's just a little bit of history repeating. -- Propellerheads Improve the effectiveness of your Internet presence with a domain name makeover!http://SupersetSolutions.com/ ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: Fwd: Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi Grant On Saturday 27 February 2010 at 9:54:56 PM, you wrote: It sounds like you're using the software to do the opposite thing that many people do. I think digital signatures are utilized much more than encrypted communication. I don't know; I have not seen any purported volumes ofeither And digital signatures are about authenticating to a real person, and not anonymity. Even with a persona on a forum, the digital signature provides a measure of reassurance that those posts bearing the same moniker actually do come from the same person. If you don't want to publish your email for the anonymity/privacy reasons you've outlined, then you probably don't want to use your legal name either. And it looks like you don't. Which is fine for encrypting documents. But it renders two key features of digital signatures meaningless. Authentication and Non-repudiation go out the window. I'm not convinced that non-repudiation does go out of the window much more than for a key claiming to represent a person with a name backed up by government-issued ID, unless you know more about the person. Say an individual has a key saying he's John Smith. He's found a few people he doesn't know, who have checked his passport or driving licence and signed his key to attest to his identity. He stops using his key, stops communicating with you and closes the email account. A very common name; which John Smith was it? Is it much easier to track a random John Smith than a random MFPA? How do I authenticate that an anonymous entity is really an anonymous entity? I'm not anonymous: I'm MFPA. Various people who know me personally could attest to that. For all anybody reading this knows, I could have renounced my previous identity and now have official ID declaring that I am MFPA. That doesn't make any sense. How do I get into a dispute with an anonymous entity about whether he really agreed to do X? I wasn't planning to get into a dispute. *If* I said I'll do it, I will. OK (-; And although it does prove message integrity, that, in and of itself, doesn't mean much for an anonymous entity. A message to a mailing list from somebody you do not know who calls himself MFPA. A message to the same mailing list from somebody I do not know who calls himself Grant Olsen. Both are signed and the signature checks both indicate no tampering. In what way does one digital signature mean less than the other? So a few examples to elaborate. I'm going to use MFPA as the anonymous user who doesn't have a real ID for clarity sake. It's better than anonymous entity. Just to be clear, I'm not really talking about you or making any personal attacks in the examples. You're just the generic guy with the non-identifiable key. Thanks, I think (-: Farfetched example. An email from MFPA pops up on the list. My house burnt down. Lost my key. Lost my rev certificate. Here's my new info. Five minutes later, another email from MFPA. That dude generated a fake key. Keep using the old one. The new one is bad! A third email from MFPA. That last dude is lying. Turns out he stole my laptop before burning my house down. Who do we trust? Which key do we use? We have no way of knowing who the real MFPA is, because he was anonymous to begin with. My posting style, turn of phrase, and opinions suddenly taking a step-change could be a clue. Although, depending on how I suffered in the fire, that could happen. If I used the name John Smith, how would this example be different? (BTW I'm NOT John Smith) How could I sign your key? It sounds like you don't want anyone to sign it anyway, plenty of other people want to sign keys and build the web of trust. I can't verify your key in any way. You're anonymous. There's no way to prove you're MFPA. So I can't sign your key. If you knew me personally, you could. And as I already said, do you know MFPA's not my legal identity? There used to be somebody in my town who had officially changed his name to FREFF. (Never did understand why.) Lets assume among your circle of friends, who know each other personally in real life, you sign off on each others keys. And I somehow know one of your friends, and we sign each others keys. To me, it's a meaningless assertion for someone to claim that they've verified that you're the real MFPA. That doesn't mean anything to me because you're anonymous to me. It also doesn't mean anything if you've signed off on someone's key. What does it mean to me that MFPA vouched for someone else's identity? Another meaningless assertion. If you replace each instance of MFPA in the above paragraph with John Smith, how does it alter the sense of your point? If your friend, who you have known for decades, asked you to sign their key, would you check their documents just in case their legal identity differed from the name you had always known them by?
Re: key question
On Sun, 2010-02-28 at 04:33 +, MFPA wrote: Speculation is great, but speculation isn't fact -- and we need to change the way we do things based on facts, not on speculations. We can agree on facts, but our speculations will likely not overlap very much at all. I'm sure anybody reading this can find multiple examples where speculation has informed progress. Speculation isn't any more progress than an idea is action. Speculation buttressed with facts leads, in time, to progress. But speculation, like an idea, is only the germ of what it is intended to create. -Paul -- New Windows 7: Double the DRM, Double the fun! Learn more: http://windows7sins.org +-+ | PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 | | PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 | +-+ ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
I think that MFPA has succinctly summed up his point of view in these two quotes. On Sun, 2010-02-28 at 04:33 +, MFPA wrote: What you're saying here is, even if the advice were sound for one million users, and destructive to the privacy of just one, I still would not change because any key I encounter could be that one. That is exactly what I am saying. Neutral for a million but destructive for one, so let's all protect the one. On Sat, 2010-02-27 at 20:39:57 +, MFPA wrote: It seems (and I could be utterly wrong), that MFPA is saying Not everyone wants their key on the keyservers, so please don't automatically send other people's keys there. If the key owner wants the key on the keyservers, he'll send it himself. That is exactly what I am saying. Most peoples keys contain personal contact details and the decision to place that information in the public domain rests solely with the person whose details they are. -Paul -- Got PGP? +-+ | PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 | | PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 | +-+ ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Thursday 25 February 2010 at 6:04:00 PM, in mid:4b86bb90.70...@mozilla-enigmail.org, John Clizbe wrote: Then you need not send your key to the keyserver network. Pretty simple personal choice, huh? Don't want to? Don't do it. Fair enough. Whether one chooses to send his key to the keyservers or not, it is still a good idea and in the interest of the OpenPGP community to utilize the keyservers. There are privacy issues, especially if user-ids on the key contain email addresses. In some cases, the authorities knowing an individual used encryption could be a problem. There is the issue of controlling the image that is portrayed by the signatures on your key. Of course, if you are signing messages to a public list such as this, it *is* a good idea to put the key on a server. *Public* key encryption is fostered by the *public* dissemination of keys and the keyservers are, IMO, the best mechanism for that. Keyservers are certainly good for quick circulation of a key revocation. Other than that, how the presence of my key on a keyserver foster the use of encryption when emailing me? It will probably not be noticed by anybody who doesn't use OpenPGP already. Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. Ohhh... I see. Do they take their ball and go home? Do they jump up and down? Stomp their feet? Hold their breath until they turn blue? Do they forward private email to a public list? I apologise for that indiscretion. It was threaded as a reply to my post on the public list, and it didn't occur to me that it might have been sent just to me. Sorry if I offended you. Such key sequestration is a minority viewpoint and I doubt even a good number of folks on a fully encrypted forum such as PGPNet would agree with you and would instead support keyserver use. What's not to agree with in my statement that not everybody wants to put their keys on the keyservers? Some PGPNET members prefer to use Biglumber, or to post their key on their own website. Quite a few members use the keyservers, and some are active in networks such as GSWoT. Some members don't choose to have their key on the servers, and there was heated discussion some time back when somebody signed everybody's keys and uploaded them to a keyserver. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com I would like to help you out. Which way did you come in? -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS4fufqipC46tDG5pAQpdpQP+Jt6wFJyyfGenY/9zNZqLGRqVXkv1vMxz 5wxYHUHOtLCEgUWugajfR7TQ7/4PBm1R6lN4+7rtltepswGUiikniEkHfhBLJx+t K22Aa+vr3ZxS5bA2K/rsvNQyrPcr0O0Wqrst4oxIs8qamToxPpsBTHUMTONxfG11 gRypxuzUFig= =yb7f -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/26/10 9:49 AM, MFPA wrote: I thought signing somebody's key was just stating to the world that you believe the claimed identity of the person who controls that key at the time you are signing it - not an indication that you are in any way associated. I'm scratching my head here trying to figure out how you can reasonably affirm the claimed identity of the person who controls the key if you are in no way associated with them. A signature on a key says, I believe this key really corresponds to this person. But if you have no association whatsoever with that person, how can you make a signature? The existence of the signature necessitates at least *some* association. Even a trusted timestamp service that makes signatures without any human intervention makes an association claim: at this date and time, someone sent this document to me for signing. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 26, 2010, at 11:24 AM, Robert J. Hansen wrote: On 2/26/10 9:49 AM, MFPA wrote: I thought signing somebody's key was just stating to the world that you believe the claimed identity of the person who controls that key at the time you are signing it - not an indication that you are in any way associated. I'm scratching my head here trying to figure out how you can reasonably affirm the claimed identity of the person who controls the key if you are in no way associated with them. There is associated and then there is associated. I suspect MFPA is using the term in the met casually, perhaps at a keysigning event sense, and not in the friends with, or partners in crime with sense. Both are associated. The latter two are (forgive me) more associated. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/26/10 10:53 AM, MFPA wrote: There are privacy issues, especially if user-ids on the key contain email addresses. This isn't persuasive. It's been hammered out tons of times, and no one has ever presented a strong argument for keeping email addresses secret. Usually the same arguments are marshaled against it again and again, and those are the same arguments that have not been persuasive. In some cases, the authorities knowing an individual used encryption could be a problem. Why? Because they have a key on the keyservers? If this is what you're worried about, rest easy: there are so many easier ways to learn whether someone uses encrypted email that I can't imagine competent law-enforcement searching the keyservers. For instance, in the United States the authorities can get your email headers without a warrant. That means to, from, subject, routing information, and all the kluges. Check the kluges on this email and I'm pretty sure you'll see kluges related to Enigmail. Presto, at that point people know I'm using a crypto-aware MTA. Investigators also don't develop very many leads based on gee, this person uses crypto. Many more leads are developed based on kludge investigation -- what security geeks call traffic analysis. If they nab a child pornographer and discover that you always emailed him between one and three days before the child pornographer uploaded a new set of images, well... that's the kind of interesting coincidence which will start a federal investigation. The fact you have a crypto key, not so much. There is the issue of controlling the image that is portrayed by the signatures on your key. That image can only be portrayed if the viewers are ignorant of how the WoT works. What you are saying here is, we must change the way we act in order to accommodate the prejudices of the ignorant. Did that in high school -- it was the most disastrous social experiment of my life. I've seen nothing in the last twenty years to make me think I should repeat this experiment. Other than that, how the presence of my key on a keyserver foster the use of encryption when emailing me? It will probably not be noticed by anybody who doesn't use OpenPGP already. The second sentence is a tautology. OpenPGP technologies will probably not be used by people who don't use OpenPGP already. It's trivially true, which is to say that it's a true statement which leads nowhere. Speaking for myself, I've used the keyservers on several occasions. I'll meet someone in person, they'll give me their key ID and fingerprint, and then later on I'll pull down their key ID, verify their fingerprint, and then use it for communication with them. I have my OpenPGP fingerprint at the bottom of my business card for just this reason. When I hand out cards at conferences, I not only tell people how to contact me, but I give people all the information they need to contact me securely. I know several other people who do the same thing. What's not to agree with in my statement that not everybody wants to put their keys on the keyservers? I don't think we agree that's your statement. Not everybody believes the world is round, or that the Earth orbits the sun. You can always find at least *one* person who believes some nonsense, and the fact that not *everyone* agrees is not evidence that these minority fringe viewpoints should be allowed to substantially influence mainstream usage. The fact you are arguing so passionately for this point of view leads me to believe you have a horse in this race, and that you want to persuade other people to not upload keys by default. If all you're saying is, there are people in the world who do not understand the keyserver network and get unhinged when others upload their public keys to it, then sure, I agree. Thread's dead, next subject, we'll continue to use the keyserver network and they'll continue to get unhinged. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/26/10 12:38 PM, MFPA wrote: I am *not* advocating the implementation of any form of Digital Restrictions Malware (DRM). You can say you're not advocating DRM -- but if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, flies like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck. Digital: yes, the public key is in a digital form. Rights : yes, you're advocating the owner possesses intrinsic rights. Management: yes, you're advocating the owner should be allowed to have total control over how the key gets distributed. That's pretty extreme management. But, hey. If you don't like DRM on the honor system, I'm happy to call it ORCON (Originator Controlled). ORCON material doesn't get copied, shared, promulgated, forwarded on, without the originator's explicit permission. It is the most extreme form of DRM imaginable. I thought I was being generous by saying you were advocating DRM on the honor system instead of ORCON -- ORCON is much more onerous. My exposure to ORCON material came from my work with electronic voting systems. Government officials are sometimes willing to give electronic voting geeks a peek behind the curtain, so long as there's an ORCON agreement signed in blood with the Devil himself as an eyewitness. You're advocating public keys be treated like the inner secrets of how electronic voting machines work. So am I. It's just that you're advocating they all be kept secret by default and publication being an exception to the rule -- and I'm advocating they all be kept public by default and secrecy being the exception to the rule. Uploading a somebody else's key without first checking it is OK by them is a breach of their privacy You're claiming they have a reasonable expectation that, if they share data that is clearly marked *public*, the recipient should understand *public* means clear it with me first? I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. The key says public right at the very top, and I think it's unreasonable to expect people to infer that it means no, don't share it. This is why the burden is on the key provider: if you don't want the key shared, you have to explicitly tell someone about it. If you don't tell someone about it, they are allowed to think the phrase public means just that. and could well be illegal/unlawful in jurisdictions with data protection legislation (for example, if a company published a customer's key, showing their name and/or email address, to a server). That's not the key sharer's problem. That's the problem of the person who provided the key. If you know it would be unlawful for you to share information, don't share it. I don't see the connection between DRM and a perfectly proper respect for individual privacy. By implication, then, I lack a proper respect for individual privacy. At this point this seems to be dropping straight into the ad-hominem range. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/26/2010 12:38 PM, MFPA wrote: I am *not* advocating the implementation of any form of Digital Restrictions Malware (DRM). Uploading a somebody else's key without first checking it is OK by them is a breach of their privacy and could well be illegal/unlawful in jurisdictions with data protection legislation (for example, if a company published a customer's key, showing their name and/or email address, to a server). As a practical matter, even if your contacts agree to respect your wishes, it's still pretty easy for them to accidentally send it to the keyservers. Perhaps mis-typing a command when they try to upload their own key. Perhaps clicking the wrong button. Perhaps because they just don't really know how gpg works and start typing random commands. From a practical perspective, whether it's right or wrong, you've got to assume that if they can, they will, and that key will be out there forever. One of the reasons to use public/private key encryption is because you don't always trust the other parties to do the correct thing. So if you are worried about the keyservers having information that could somehow implicate you in whatever, you'd need to obfuscate your UID, as you mentioned in another post. Asking people not to publish the key doesn't offer any real protection. And if you've done that, you might as well publish the key yourself. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 MFPA escribió: ... Do many people check the keyservers for a possible key when they contact somebody they have not emailed before? Well, I have done that once or twice... ... Use of encryption may put an individual under suspicion of illegal or subversive activity, or in some places may be illegal itself. Isn't that a good enough reason to not want a key on a public server showing your name and/or an email address that can be traced to you? Right, and in those cases, I think people using illegal encryption tools should not rely on other people keeping the public key secret, after all, uploading the wrong key to a keyserver can be just one click away from uploading the right one... and people make mistakes. Best Regards -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJLiAJAAAoJEMV4f6PvczxAuBgIAJkrmS4/o9ZWi34EPe9TMiNp GOw44cCP8/GsmhPa+SiqmH9l5F4LhXWzBOZy0Yu8hwcQmp2OZIxK0kFFuztU6+0Q w0l0NNze0WT81Knlu2zI78UxfUhczNgK32SmRGOL7xUtafn8lJZO0TdLiFhv74eS FjRr2nWyhPUY3R3jIbeJrRl/Jp3GbpECgX/l7wP8BNJzisk3/C8x+ZlfJ+P49EkQ 0/VM00JQnxNux+o/YhHqXMYJMqHJzmPvOl8CyKSasDmZ9kmP7TkMBXedng33r2ZW gkdEBaMjC8a6FiJvrX7/F0dxJjBqYcDLMHW/3Ccp1S+N8VGVL2bepmK3eyqvqgs= =NkdG -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 26, 2010, at 1:30 PM, Grant Olson wrote: On 2/26/2010 12:38 PM, MFPA wrote: I am *not* advocating the implementation of any form of Digital Restrictions Malware (DRM). Uploading a somebody else's key without first checking it is OK by them is a breach of their privacy and could well be illegal/unlawful in jurisdictions with data protection legislation (for example, if a company published a customer's key, showing their name and/or email address, to a server). As a practical matter, even if your contacts agree to respect your wishes, it's still pretty easy for them to accidentally send it to the keyservers. Perhaps mis-typing a command when they try to upload their own key. Perhaps clicking the wrong button. Perhaps because they just don't really know how gpg works and start typing random commands. An interesting tidbit here is that the OpenPGP spec actually handles this accidental submission case. There is a keyserver no-modify flag that can be set on a key, which requests that the keyserver reject any key that isn't submitted by the key owner. Alas, while GnuPG supports the flag, no keyserver does. (And in fact, supporting it would require a pretty significant redesign of the keyserver network). David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
Alas, while GnuPG supports the flag, no keyserver does. David Just curious... Does support just mean it sets the bit? Or will it turn an attempt to --send-keys on that key into a no-op? signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 26, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Grant Olson wrote: Alas, while GnuPG supports the flag, no keyserver does. David Just curious... Does support just mean it sets the bit? Or will it turn an attempt to --send-keys on that key into a no-op? Support means it gives the user the ability to set and clear the bit (it is set by default). David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Friday 26 February 2010 at 8:39:07 PM, in mid:97334e1f-ba6f-403e-83eb-51daee32f...@jabberwocky.com, David Shaw wrote: On Feb 26, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Grant Olson wrote: Alas, while GnuPG supports the flag, no keyserver does. David Just curious... Does support just mean it sets the bit? Or will it turn an attempt to --send-keys on that key into a no-op? Support means it gives the user the ability to set and clear the bit (it is set by default). Would there not be some merit in honouring the flag by (at least) giving an extra warning to answer if you execute --send-keys to upload a key with that bit set? - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com Don't anthropomorphize computers - they hate it -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS4g42aipC46tDG5pAQpbhgP/UR/YSCW6ns0SZbrSBaiHVppLI2tZLg2D iGLChDodKWh/OI93e6wlZlxtgDv5ZywdzXcM+8yehCNiW4ifmaHnpA9NAMlYcS/u Uuw5aG/CE1uhnLsnbwX8QzSvUBsaMaLm0oJZRq+2LyippQu/27L4PvS8f1oWKXnp 1eX02sMESpY= =eGNU -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/26/10 3:14 PM, MFPA wrote: But if it bears only a slight resemblance to a duck, it is probably *not* a duck. You are asserting that (a) the person who created the public key owns the information, (b) the person owns the information has the right to control how it is disseminated, and (c) that if someone shares the information in violation of the owner's wishes they are doing something morally and/or legally wrong. You have to assert (a). Ownership is the legal and/or moral right to control how a resource is utilized. I own my car because I have the legal and moral right to control who drives it. You are claiming the originator of the key material has the legal and moral right to control how it is disseminated: therefore, you are making a claim the originator of the key *owns* the information contained in that key. You have to assert (b). It follows logically from (a). (a) implies (b). And you are asserting (c). You're dressing it up in polite rhetoric about the right to privacy, but at the end of the day you're asserting that people are doing something wrong if they violate the information owner's wishes. In other words, you're in the same boat as the MPAA. Looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck: it's a duck. The reasonable expectation that somebody will extend the common courtesy of checking with the owner before publishing their key falls somewhat short of the owner having total control over their key. You are presupposing the expectation is reasonable. I am not willing to grant that as a given. I think personally-identifiable information, including an individual's openPGP key, should not be made public without the consent of the individual ... I think it is a reasonable expectation that the key owner would have uploaded their key to the keyservers themselves if they wanted it to be there. Again, you are begging the question. We're trying to figure out whether it is reasonable to expect people to keep public keys secret without the owner's permission. What you're saying here is, it's reasonable because I think it is reasonable. You're assuming the truth of the proposition in question, and using it to try and establish the truth of the proposition in question. If the key is not already on the servers, that is a pretty strong indicator that the key owner wants it that way. It's an indicator the key owner has not uploaded it to that network. For instance, what if the key has been uploaded to PGP's keyserver (which, last I checked, did not sync with the network, but is publicly accessible), but not the global network? Is that evidence the key owner wants it publicized, but just not publicized on the global network? Etc., etc. There are a *ton* of edge cases here. The absence of a key on the keyserver network is, itself, only evidence that it's not there. It doesn't show motive, any more than my having a shotgun in my closet shows my motive to commit murder. I don't understand your comment. It's not unlawful for the individual to share their own information. It would be unlawful for the recipient of that information to share it with others without consent from the individual I am unaware of your qualifications to talk about universally-applicable law. I cannot accept your expert opinion on this subject without it first being established that you are an expert. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Feb 26, 2010, at 4:10 PM, MFPA wrote: Just curious... Does support just mean it sets the bit? Or will it turn an attempt to --send-keys on that key into a no-op? Support means it gives the user the ability to set and clear the bit (it is set by default). Would there not be some merit in honouring the flag by (at least) giving an extra warning to answer if you execute --send-keys to upload a key with that bit set? I don't think so. At best it's a false sense of security to block or warn on gpg --send-keys but not on (for example) gpg --export (which is then followed by by sending the key via a web browser or email). It also doesn't affect PGP. I'd rather not give the user the impression that this is more than it is. Plus (and I'll admit to a level of amusement in this situation), virtually all keys generated with GPG have the no-modify bit set, as it's the default. It would thus block/warn on most every key. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
As well as backing up your private key and password on other electronic storage (CD/memory stick... encrypted of course), I recommend that you print your private key, a revocation certificate, and your passphrase on paper, and store that document in a safe place... a secure lock box, ... a safety deposit box in a bank. I've had bad luck with CD/DVD media going bad, and consider them an unreliable resource simply because of integrity problems. Also, you may want to use Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme to split up your passphrase among ***trusted*** friends, so that no single friend has the passphrase, but requires several of them to regenerate your passphrase when you loose your passphrase. Trust, in this context, really is about, statistically, how often someone follows the rules set up to maintain a secure environment, and not what or who you feel good about or admire. Trust is only created when you set up these types of structures... anything else is going on faith. Richard Tobias Holz wrote: Hey Folks, i succesfully installed gnupg on my Win7 machine. I want to use it with Thunderbird to encrypt personal eMails. Now I've got some questions: 1) What does happen if I lose my private key? Can I burn it to a CD/DVD? 2) Where can I find the key, I just got the passphrase? I generated the Keys with OpenPGP-Plugin for Thunderbird. I got the public key (something_stands_here.asc) and encryption works fine :) Hopefully looking forward Tobias ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Friday 26 February 2010 at 5:04:36 PM, in mid:4b87ff24.3000...@sixdemonbag.org, Robert J. Hansen wrote: On 2/26/10 10:53 AM, MFPA wrote: There are privacy issues, especially if user-ids on the key contain email addresses. This isn't persuasive. It's been hammered out tons of times, and no one has ever presented a strong argument for keeping email addresses secret. Maybe not but there is a perceived need, as evidenced by services like spamgourmet and all the disposable email address outfits In any case, I've never seen a convincing argument *for* including email addresses in the UID of a PGP key. In some cases, the authorities knowing an individual used encryption could be a problem. Why? Because they have a key on the keyservers? OK, as a reason not to upload somebody's key to a server without their consent, this was poor. I suspect an individual in those circumstances would take great care that whoever had their key knew to keep it secure. There is the issue of controlling the image that is portrayed by the signatures on your key. That image can only be portrayed if the viewers are ignorant of how the WoT works. What you are saying here is, we must change the way we act in order to accommodate the prejudices of the ignorant. Well, now you put it that way... Other than that, how the presence of my key on a keyserver foster the use of encryption when emailing me? Speaking for myself, I've used the keyservers on several occasions. I'll meet someone in person, they'll give me their key ID and fingerprint, and then later on I'll pull down their key ID, verify their fingerprint, and then use it for communication with them. If their key lived at their own website or on an email responder, for example, you could still do this - except the note of the fingerprint and key-id would also need to contain a URL. What's not to agree with in my statement that not everybody wants to put their keys on the keyservers? I don't think we agree that's your statement. Not everybody believes the world is round, or that the Earth orbits the sun. You can always find at least *one* person who believes some nonsense, and the fact that not *everyone* agrees is not evidence that these minority fringe viewpoints should be allowed to substantially influence mainstream usage. OK OK, the post I was replying to when I started this stated It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. I do not see this statement as any kind of self-evident truth, yet I have been thoroughly taken to task for questioning it. The keyservers are just one of the platforms available for disseminating your key. What makes them the *best* platform? Nothing in this thread so far has convinced me of their supremacy. The fact you are arguing so passionately for this point of view leads me to believe you have a horse in this race, and that you want to persuade other people to not upload keys by default. I would no more deliberately publish somebody's key without their consent than I would pass on their phone number or address. I would expect that to be normal, without the need to persuade anybody. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com No matter where you go, there you are. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS4ilsqipC46tDG5pAQq7jAQAqijYzD96kV894BFofqqpGsp8j38a8a1p MRe6B3NQQTz9CP+rqS5Gs98aSuinMLteTqDpFKESYwOwTQbH4KXzxqxVTS5/E+u4 l75fgjo77VHQazOuPXsCjFuVvpNjhOKF3BHTYiexFebzcndLcXiNg/pAhU/OxofA Vk1EAVOp7m8= =R8XD -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/26/10 11:55 PM, MFPA wrote: Maybe not but there is a perceived need, as evidenced by services like spamgourmet and all the disposable email address outfits There is a perceived need for $150 bowls of soup, as evidenced by dozens of high-priced gourmet restaurants in major cities. The existence of a market for a service is not evidence that the service is generally useful or needed. In any case, I've never seen a convincing argument *for* including email addresses in the UID of a PGP key. First, the status quo doesn't need arguments in its favor. The status quo exists. *Changing* the status quo is what requires arguments in its favor. Second, then you don't have to include it in yours. Why are you bringing this up? I don't care what your UID is, and I don't want you to have a vote in whether I put an email address in mine. If their key lived at their own website or on an email responder, for example, you could still do this - except the note of the fingerprint and key-id would also need to contain a URL. In which case you're still hosting it publicly, so why not use the keyservers? OK OK, the post I was replying to when I started this stated It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. I do not see this statement as any kind of self-evident truth, yet I have been thoroughly taken to task for questioning it. This is not taking you to task. This is listening to your claims, and giving strong arguments against them. My father is a judge. Growing up, if I were to assert the sky was blue he would ask how I knew the sky was blue. (No, I'm not kidding.) It's a weird way to grow up, but it's served me very well in my life. All claims must be scrutinized and examined. If they survive the scrutiny, good. If they don't, then let's make note of them and remember not to waste time on these claims in the future. The keyservers are just one of the platforms available for disseminating your key. What makes them the *best* platform? You've set up a straw man. Nobody is arguing the keyserver network is the best platform. What is best will depend on each person's individual valuation of the many factors that go into this question. That said, it is broadly true that it's a good idea to send keys to the keyserver network. The reasons why have already been well-explained. Your reasons why not are either unfounded or debunked. In your voluminous defense of privacy rights, you've not given any numbers for what fraction of users need or want to keep their public keys private. If you're arguing that the good idea we've advocated is not a good idea, you need to show there are substantial numbers of users who will be negatively impacted. You haven't. You've talked about the danger of reputation being slandered by implication of association: but as David Shaw has pointed out, if someone wants to do that there are much easier ways to do it than with keys. You've talked about making it easy for law enforcement to learn who communicates securely with whom: but as I've said, law enforcement (at least in the US, and probably also the UK) has much easier ways to learn this. You've talked about spam: but as John Clizbe has pointed out, although keyservers do get harvested for addresses there is no statistically significant difference in the spamflood between putting a key on the server or keeping it private. You'd have to ask him about his methodology and his precise numbers, but I'm sure he'd be willing to provide them if you asked. (I used to share your concerns about spam, up until John showed me his numbers and convinced me.) The status quo is, it is generally a good idea to send your key to the keyserver network. If you want to change that, the burden is on you to present persuasive evidence supporting a change. So far I've not seen it, which means the status quo stands. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Thursday 25 February 2010 at 3:53:23 AM, in mid:4b85f433.1040...@mozilla-enigmail.org, John Clizbe wrote: MFPA wrote: Hi John On Thursday 25 February 2010 at 12:17:36 AM, you wrote: It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. But is, of course, a matter of personal choice. Whatever. Everything in life is a matter of personal choice. Was there some point you wished to make? My point was that not everybody wishes/chooses to send their keys to the keyservers. Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com The truth is rarely pure and never simple -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBS4aIWqipC46tDG5pAQotagQAnjEJcfJttj58GG7oEFrrPhto82gkfcMu ewlVHvcak6tkRVz35WCyVOXQK3cwvF0Zp03tNUM8Xo3vJ2G0IktNy4roCQqCHTwA GuPOb0ioZqh3Wi615xZ4PVAV2iBElRTJtETuYD1CyhlN2VhWsUHsNZ1Zo5JOcwmO cRhbZw+Sm8s= =naYo -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
MFPA wrote: On Thursday 25 February 2010 at 3:53:23 AM, in mid:4b85f433.1040...@mozilla-enigmail.org, John Clizbe wrote: MFPA wrote: Hi John On Thursday 25 February 2010 at 12:17:36 AM, you wrote: It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. But is, of course, a matter of personal choice. Whatever. Everything in life is a matter of personal choice. Was there some point you wished to make? My point was that not everybody wishes/chooses to send their keys to the keyservers. Then you need not send your key to the keyserver network. Pretty simple personal choice, huh? Don't want to? Don't do it. Whether one chooses to send his key to the keyservers or not, it is still a good idea and in the interest of the OpenPGP community to utilize the keyservers. *Public* key encryption is fostered by the *public* dissemination of keys and the keyservers are, IMO, the best mechanism for that. I stand by my earlier statement. Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. Ohhh... I see. Do they take their ball and go home? Do they jump up and down? Stomp their feet? Hold their breath until they turn blue? Do they forward private email to a public list? Such key sequestration is a minority viewpoint and I doubt even a good number of folks on a fully encrypted forum such as PGPNet would agree with you and would instead support keyserver use. -- John P. Clizbe Inet:John (a) Mozilla-Enigmail.org You can't spell fiasco without SCO. hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net or mailto:pgp-public-k...@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 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/25/10 9:24 AM, MFPA wrote: Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. What you're advocating here is DRM on the honor system. Don't copy the key, don't distribute the key, don't upload the key, don't do anything with the key, without the explicit permission of the key owner. Me, I consider DRM on the honor system to be the exact same as any other kind of DRM -- something to be overcome and then ignored. If someone asks me nicely, please do not upload this key, I will probably say yes. But it is a *huge* leap to go from there to do not upload keys without the owners' permission. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 14:24 +, MFPA wrote: My point was that not everybody wishes/chooses to send their keys to the keyservers. Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. In my case, the reason that I uploaded my keys to public keyservers was to make it possible for anyone who wanted to privately communicate with me to do so. Even if I didn't know them. If the reason for keeping the public key to yourself is that you don't want anyone, except for a selected few, to know your secret e-mail address, then create two e-mail addresses. One will only be shared with people you know intimately, and the other will be for the public. 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. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 15:23 -0500, Robert J. Hansen wrote: On 2/25/10 9:24 AM, MFPA wrote: Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. What you're advocating here is DRM on the honor system. Don't copy the key, don't distribute the key, don't upload the key, don't do anything with the key, without the explicit permission of the key owner. Me, I consider DRM on the honor system to be the exact same as any other kind of DRM -- something to be overcome and then ignored. If someone asks me nicely, please do not upload this key, I will probably say yes. But it is a *huge* leap to go from there to do not upload keys without the owners' permission. Friend don't let friends -- PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 15:23 -0500, Robert J. Hansen wrote: On 2/25/10 9:24 AM, MFPA wrote: Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. What you're advocating here is DRM on the honor system. Don't copy the key, don't distribute the key, don't upload the key, don't do anything with the key, without the explicit permission of the key owner. Me, I consider DRM on the honor system to be the exact same as any other kind of DRM -- something to be overcome and then ignored. If someone asks me nicely, please do not upload this key, I will probably say yes. But it is a *huge* leap to go from there to do not upload keys without the owners' permission. Friends don't let friends share PGP keys. ;-) -- PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
My error. I didn't CC the following message to the mailing list. On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 02:38 -0800, Paul Richard Ramer wrote: I won't add to the other good replies, except for this. Concerning the revocation certificate that you would be behooved to create, you should take care to protect it. If an enemy (and we hope you don't have any :-)) got a hold of your revocation certificate, he could revoke your key by uploading the certificate to public keyservers. Even though your copy of your private and public keys wouldn't be revoked, all of the copies of your public key on the public keyservers would be revoked. This, of course, would be a major impediment to people wanting to privately communicate with you. Other than that, feel free to ask your questions on this mailing list. We are here to help. Paul -- Privacy is good. Use PGP. +-+ | PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 | | PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 | +-+ -- Privacy is good. Use PGP. +-+ | PGP Key ID: 0x3DB6D884 | | PGP Fingerprint: EBA7 88B3 6D98 2D4A E045 A9F7 C7C6 6ADF 3DB6 D884 | +-+ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/25/10 1:04 PM, John Clizbe said: MFPA wrote: On Thursday 25 February 2010 at 3:53:23 AM, in mid:4b85f433.1040...@mozilla-enigmail.org, John Clizbe wrote: MFPA wrote: Hi John On Thursday 25 February 2010 at 12:17:36 AM, you wrote: It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. But is, of course, a matter of personal choice. Whatever. Everything in life is a matter of personal choice. Was there some point you wished to make? My point was that not everybody wishes/chooses to send their keys to the keyservers. Then you need not send your key to the keyserver network. Pretty simple personal choice, huh? Don't want to? Don't do it. Whether one chooses to send his key to the keyservers or not, it is still a good idea and in the interest of the OpenPGP community to utilize the keyservers. *Public* key encryption is fostered by the *public* dissemination of keys and the keyservers are, IMO, the best mechanism for that. I stand by my earlier I interpret that word, public, differently. To me just because a key _can_ be made public doesn't mean it automatically _should_. statement. Some people hate the idea and get *very* upset if their key does end up on the servers. Ohhh... I see. Do they take their ball and go home? Do they jump up and down? Stomp their feet? Hold their breath until they turn blue? Do they forward private email to a public list? They may have reason--by looking at signatures on a public keyserver, anyone can figure out which people you communicate with securely. How would you like the idea of governments worldwide starting to keep tabs on you if one of the people who've signed your key turns out to be a criminal, a terror suspect, or a child porn collector? Uploading a signed public key to the 'net is a sure way of taking away people's freedom to keep their associations private. They may choose to give that up for themselves, but you shouldn't slam them for keeping their options open. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
On 2/25/10 8:29 PM, Yawar Amin wrote: I interpret that word, public, differently. To me just because a key _can_ be made public doesn't mean it automatically _should_. What in life is automatic, besides death and taxes? We are not talking about automatic here. We are talking instead about what is reasonable and in accordance with the general expectations of the community. I've not heard any organized outcry for DRM on the honor system, and I've not heard any good arguments for it. I've heard a loosely organized outcry for sharing public keys widely, and good arguments for it. Based on this, I'm going to follow the community practice of sharing keys widely, unless there are compelling reasons to do otherwise. I suspect most users are in the same boat. They may have reason--by looking at signatures on a public keyserver, anyone can figure out which people you communicate with securely. I invite you to look at my key and figure out with whom I communicate securely. Looking over the key I use now and the keys I've used in the past, I don't see any signatures there from people I've traded more than a handful of secured emails with. You might think the signatures on 0xFEAF8109 are indicative of something -- but really all that it's indicative of is that I attended the keysigning party at OSCON 2006. How would you like the idea of governments worldwide starting to keep tabs on you if one of the people who've signed your key turns out to be a criminal, a terror suspect, or a child porn collector? You *must* be kidding. Listen, if there's some sociopath who likes raping eleven year olds on camera, and my name happens to be in his address book, or he happened to sign my key, or my name is *in any way* connected with his, then yes, I like the idea of my government coming around to ask me, do you know anything about this? When it comes to hideous crimes being perpetrated against children, I kind of support the idea of law-enforcement officers doing their jobs. Sure, sure, there are a ton of other more questionable investigations they could be conducting -- but your examples here are *awful*. Uploading a signed public key to the 'net is a sure way of taking away people's freedom to keep their associations private. If you want to keep your association with someone private, give it a local (non-exportable) signature. Exportable signatures are meant for the case where the signer *wants* to attest to the world their association. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Tobias Holz escribió: Hey Folks, i succesfully installed gnupg on my Win7 machine. I want to use it with Thunderbird to encrypt personal eMails. I'm not a Windows user, so I'll explain what I'll do in Linux, but I suppose it'll be pretty similar and you shouldn't have much problems... If I'm mistaken in something, I'm sure somebody will correct me. Now I've got some questions: 1) What does happen if I lose my private key? Can I burn it to a CD/DVD? If you lose your private key and you don't have a backup, then it means you won't be able to decipher messages ciphered with your public key or sign messages (at least not with the keypair you lost). You can burn it to a CD/DVD or copy it to any other storage device if you previously export it to a file, but, and quoting from gpg man page, that might not be a good idea (in security terms): --export-secret-keys --export-secret-subkeys Same as --export, but exports the secret keys instead. This is normally not very useful and a security risk. So, if you are going to copy it somewhere, first make sure that the CD/DVD or whatever will be safe (in a degree depending on your needs, of course). 2) Where can I find the key, I just got the passphrase? You can list all the keys you have in your system with gpg --list-keys option, once you've identified the key you want to export, you can export it with gpg --output file --export key_id (for the public key) and gpg --ouput file --export-private-keys key_id for the private key. With the OpenPGP plugin for Thunderbird, if you go to OpenPGP Key Management, you can see the keys OpenPGP is aware of, and you can export any one of them right clicking on it, and you can import a new key from a file in File Import Keys from File. I generated the Keys with OpenPGP-Plugin for Thunderbird. I got the public key (something_stands_here.asc) and encryption works fine :) Hopefully looking forward Tobias Hope that helps. Jesús. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkuFyBwACgkQqnfodDuqSEJWiQCfYTqr7SmqgRjUjqb1tZkI0Kab 2HIAoMjXEU37osjhaMc/SIGgwKtIahHV =dBlM -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Tobias Holz wrote: Hey Folks, i succesfully installed gnupg on my Win7 machine. I want to use it with Thunderbird to encrypt personal eMails. Now I've got some questions: 1) What does happen if I lose my private key? Can I burn it to a CD/DVD? If You actually 'lose' Your Private Key [i.e. Secret/Private half of the Keypair] or lose and/or Forget Your Passphrase You are FUBAR. This is why the Enigmail Manual Quick Start Guide both _strongly_ encourage the generation of a Revocation Certificate [actually just a Special Signature File] which You should then store somewhere away from Your Keyrings. Enigmail has a 'Wizard' for this. :) 2) Where can I find the key, I just got the passphrase? Under 'OpenPGP' on the toolbar at the top of Thunderbird You will find an item in the Menu labeled 'Key Management' which will graphically display Your Keyring(s). [Hint: the default setting displays nothing until a Key ID or Email Address is entered into the Search Box /unless/ You have checked the box 'Display All Keys'. Where are the actual Keyring(s) in Win 7? The crypto-geek answer is under %AppData% → Roaming Directory/Folder _or_ C:\Program Files\GnuPG assuming You accepted the Defaults when installing GnuPG. :-\ You can also use WinSearch and enter: secring.gpg or pubring.gpg. This is the Secret Keyring and Public Keyring respectively. If You choose to burn either of these [or both] to a Disk or store them on removable media then I also suggest You include the File trustdb.gpg since this File contains Your Assigned Calculated Key Trust values. It is located in the same Directory/Folder as the other 2 Files. I generated the Keys with OpenPGP-Plugin for Thunderbird. I got the public key (something_stands_here.asc) and encryption works fine :) At the risk of being called a heretic by My fellow Members of the Enigmail Development Team I am also going to recommend a companion GPG Frontend to You for use on Windows: GPGshell [http://www.jumaros.de/rsoft/index.html] is an excellent tool for Key Management [manipulation] that offers many 'clickable' options not available within the Enigmail Key Manager as well as greatly simplifying Command Line usage. [Another Hint: in order to fully enjoy exploit all of GnuPG's many features some Command Line familiarity is gonna be necessary] Going way out on a limb I am going to assume that You are as yet unaware of the gpg.conf File and it's usefulness. Please do not hesitate to Ask more Questions within this Forum/List as well as accept Google as Your Friend. As Questions specific to Enigmail begin to develop I heartily suggest You also Join the Enigmail Mailing List as well. [https://www.mozdev.org/mailman/listinfo/enigmail] ;) HTH more than it confuses. :) JOHN ;) Timestamp: Wednesday 24 Feb 2010, 19:32 --500 (Eastern Standard Time) -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Public Key at: http://tinyurl.com/8cpho Comment: Gossamer Spider Web of Trust: http://www.gswot.org Comment: Personal Web Page: http://tinyurl.com/yzhbhx iQEcBAEBCgAGBQJLhcVYAAoJEBCGy9eAtCsPQ3oIAIAmFY/3blwse4tNLEV0cNwH G3Z0KnbX2t9XoHqUt+AoLFQDXxvFHivsIAu+7p4z7D4Dy5Zw7ya2+Stdmmf147Sy qmPg647cNT3N2YB/VqW/aq36a2cD82mZr8ltoVa+3VD2s1fwe6o2xcNiP1JbdxZW Gp4/x1lzOALwkD3BCKjuv3SIG8Pyh0AZNKJBrkP6q318WjWOv4J6AAwKD3bRLxSr I3CNTooN0GDVoF7nyc/pETsxQbWSDwy348cwvvpe5im5Y2UYTdqAgqhVbFl9DaRL iC9KrFF2bN158Ot7IInUO2cTU9CUQISuE0HUt5pFzqsFOcFHtqLiBzXoyC1+c3s= =m/vO -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: key question
Tobias Holz wrote: Hey Folks, i successfully installed gnupg on my Win7 machine. I want to use it with Thunderbird to encrypt personal eMails. Now I've got some questions: 1) What does happen if I lose my private key? Can I burn it to a CD/DVD? If you lose your secret key or forget your passphrase and cannot recover them, you are toast. There is no way to recover either except from a backup copy. CD/DVD is one method. You may also want to take a look at paperkey, http://www.jabberwocky.com/software/paperkey/. While you are saving your secret key, generate a revocation certificate and save it with the key rings on the CD and/or print it out with the paperkey copy. You'll need it if you ever lose your secret key or forget your passphrase, and cannot recover either of them. 2) Where can I find the key, I just got the passphrase? XP earlier: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\GnuPG\ Vista Windows 7: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\GnuPG\ The file you need to save is secring.gpg. The files are small enough, you should also save a copy of pubring.gpg and trustdb.gpg. I generated the Keys with OpenPGP-Plugin for Thunderbird. I got the public key (something_stands_here.asc) and encryption works fine :) Not heard of it that extension. Lots of folks use the Enigmail extension. something_stands_here' is known as the key ID. There is no benefit to keeping it secret. It is also a good idea to send your key to the keyservers. -- John P. Clizbe Inet:John (a) Mozilla-Enigmail.org You can't spell fiasco without SCO. hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net or mailto:pgp-public-k...@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 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
