🚀 go-pugleaf

I think people are coming down too hard on Terry Ritter, who
is just trying to alert people to problems with using public
keys without validation.  He is getting all these sarcastic
comments just because people don't like to hear the things he
is saying.

Actually, one of the big advances in PGP 2.0 is to make it easy
to distribute _signed_ keys.  That was one of the main points in
making changes to the data structures.  People should use this
capability and try to collect signatures for their keys.  By
distributing signed keys the hope is that the person you want to
communicate with can verify your key, at least to the extent that
the signer vouches for you.

If you don't know anybody else who is using PGP, you need to do
as Terry suggests and use some other channel to validate their
keys.  Call each other up, read your keys over the phone, and if
they check out, sign them.  This is probably safe enough today,
in my opinion.  This way you can get legitimate signatures on your
keys which can improve the security of the whole system, as Terry
says.

Also, Terry is absolutely right about the need to change keys
periodically.  The longer a key is used, the more chances someone
has to discover your secret key, and also the more it is worthwhile
for someone to spend money to try to find your key.  The PGP 2.0 key
data structures actually have an expiration field in them.  This
is not implemented in this version but it would be good to see this
feature used in a later version.

The idea would be that each key would have a fixed lifetime, maybe
one year or two years.  After that time the key would expire.  Any
attempt to use an expired key would lead to a strong warning from
the program.  A few weeks before the key expires, you create a new
key, sign it with the old one, and distribute it.  By signing it
with the old one you don't lead to an opportunity for someone to
easily fake a new key from you.

(This is all for the case of a "normal" key transition.  Switching
keys when you know your private key has been discovered will require
more drastic measures.  Key revocation certificates are another feature
which should be implemented in future versions of PGP.)

Hal Finney

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.01

mQCNAiqsNkwAAAEEAMKWM52m5EWi0ocK4u1cC2PPyHT6tavk9PC3TB5XBYDegf3d
sldRpnjJj1r+aO08FFO+QLEI9wtBqvf1PPP5iLX7sD2uIVlJH14MPtyVtjm9ZKb8
JMtCW74045BgtHBC9yQ3V7vXNV5jM6dE2ocnH4AI/pBFrGLJPKgTA69YIUw3AAUR
tCZIYWwgRmlubmV5IDw3NDA3Ni4xMDQxQGNvbXB1c2VydmUuY29tPokAlQIFECqu
M1Tidd4O/2f3CwEByrUD/3uoV2y+Fuicrrd2oDawgOw9Ejcx6E+Ty9PVPqKvflLs
0zYyGfeFVSgBbTSDP3X91N3F68nydl9J9VA6QRCGelHM1cZRukCJ0AYbKYfpwUN0
xjEGHsDrd2gT5iWlB3vBZvi+6Ybs4rSq+gyZzVm1/+oRrMen32fz2r0CLgUtHok2
=fF6Z
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----