Matthew J Ghio <mg5n+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
How about people just keep their keys, and the signatures, but they re-sign their own keys every six months or so? In order to keep their keys on the keyserver, they must submit a PGP signed message to prove that they still have that key. If they don't, the key is assumed to be lost, and it is deleted.
I have no problem with periodic deletion of keys from keyservers. They are interesting, but not a very important part of strong crypto (IMHO). My objection is to anything that makes the key itself invalid over a period that I don't chose. I'm not sure what problem you are trying to solve. Loading the whole public ring from the servers exceeds my definition of reasonable procesing now. Since the number of keys keeps growing, I expect that it will never be SOP to munge all of them. You will get keys directly, or get a few specific ones on demand. If you're just trying to save disk space on the keyservers, I'm not all that sure it is worth the effort. Disks are cheap, and getting cheaper. But your approach is as good as any. I know there are lots of keys on the servers that are no longer active -- I collected a few hundred that I exchanged with Phil K two years ago, and know many are unused starting with strnlght, the folks at CERT, and Brad Cox's key of that vintage. Even if a fair percentage, say 25% are dead, the savings are pretty trivial. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>