Holger wrote: > 2012-01-22T16:11:14-08:00, Doug Barton: >> On 01/22/2012 10:05, Holger wrote: >> > I intend to use gpg only for receiving encrypted e-mail, not signing >> > my outgoing e-mail. Because I don't want my name or e-mail address >> > out there on the keyservers, >> >> Why not? > > One reason is spam, though we haven't seen excessive abuse of the keyserver-data or the keyservers themselves yet. Of course I could simply omit the e-mail address. Another one: My full name is rather unique and I don't want to reveal with whom I communicate i.e. who signed my key. On the other hand, public keys can be easily polluted with bogus signatures ... but I guess the average researcher is not aware of that and the versed is able to filter out the bogus ones. So maybe I should refrain from participating in the web of trust and build my personal "star of trust"?!
I have a very unique last name and I'm not afraid of the keyservers. I know of about six "John Clizbe"s. We differ by middle initial and name. BTW, if I represented an entity concerned with whomever you communicated, I would likely not bother with your key. It would be much easier to have a copy of your outgoing mail retained by your ISP. Keyserver SPAM is a straw-man argument. Yes, it's possible for an address to be pulled from the key on a keyserver, in fact, I'm convinced harvesting probably takes place. But testing I did a few years ago found the amount of SPAM attributable to a key on a keyserver was not significantly different from that received as just random SPAM noise from an unused ISP account. I've seen no volume of SPAM since then to challenge that conclusion. >> > I want do create a key without a uid. >> > People who want to send me e-mail, get my e-mail address and >> > keyID/fingerprint with my business card. >> > >> > Will this work or did I miss something? >> >> How will they get your public key? > > By keyID/fingerprint from the keyserver-net. And how, exactly do they first get the KeyID/Fingerprint? Or do you intend to limit encrypted communication to those whom you have first made contact and handed a business card? -- John P. Clizbe Inet:John (a) Mozilla-Enigmail.org FSF Assoc #995 / FSFE Fellow #1797 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" _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users