Greetings all, It had been my intention to have Public Key Signings tonight but unfortunately I've been too busy during the week to come up with a suitable introductory email. The first thing to keep in mind is that there are plenty of places where you can learn `how' [0] to setup, and sign a public key but few places you can learn why that would be a useful thing to do. The first thing to keep in mind is that sending signed emails [1] is good practise where ever possible. Secondly that once you have collected a number of signatures on your key (and also signed the keys of others) verifying and validating software (e.g. kernel, samba, etc.) and security announcements becomes possible. For us in Australia though the main reason to use PKI technology is that the government [2] intends to mandate its use when dealing with them online [3]. Initially in areas such as health and tax (ABN, etc.) but eventually in many areas. Experience with PKI now, and a large base of experienced users, can change their attitude from one of `escrowed security by default' to `real security by default, escrow as an option'. The key signing, realistically you would have sent me [4] a key sometime (now is not too late), will follow the process described in [5] so you will only need to bring a (single) copy of your key and bring along some form of identification. Remember this month we will is just the first of many months of keysigning mayhem - so if you miss this one you can always come along to the next meeting. If you read this far ... Thanks, Anand [0]: <URL: http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html> [1]: Because I email from a public host I rarely sign email I send. If you are in charge of your host(s) though you should sign whenever possible. If you aren't sure something is from me - I will always resend it signed. [2]: <URL: http://www.fed.gov.au/> [3]: <URL: http://www.govonline.gov.au/projects/publickey/Gatekeeper.htm> [4]: Actually at this stage it is probably wise to send both Angus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a copy of your key so we can generate a downloadable keyring and something to print out. [5]: <URL: http://sion.quickie.net/keysigning.txt> -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
