On Mar 20, 2010, at 6:50 PM, Allen Schultz wrote:

> I know this keeps coming up. But what is the best server out there to grab 
> keys from users on this list. There are a few of you I don't have keys for.

The easy answer is that is doesn't matter.  With few exceptions, you can think 
of the keyserver world as having only two servers: "keyserver.pgp.com", and 
"everybody else".  The PGP.com one does some validation (by mailing the user ID 
on the key) that the keyholder is reachable via that address.  The other 
servers do not validate, but have the advantage of more keys.  You get to pick 
which you want more - there is no one right answer, and GnuPG will happily talk 
to either.  (At the risk of reopening the recent discussion of whether people 
can/should upload someone else's keys to a keyserver, it's worth noting that 
keyserver.pgp.com only accepts key submissions from the address named on the 
key).

Anyway, if you choose "everybody else", at least in theory, it doesn't matter 
which of the "everybody else" servers you hit.  They synchronize with each 
other, so will have the same keys.  In practice, there are a bunch of servers 
around the world, which might go up or down, so some folks have set up a 
special server name that round-robins among several running servers.  It checks 
the various servers twice a day and only includes healthy ones in the list.

All that is a longwinded way of saying to try "pool.sks-keyservers.net". ;)

David


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