Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 08:32:45 EST From: pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu (Pat Farrell) I sign keys only when I am certian that the key belongs to the human who claims to have the name on the key. There are not a lot of keys signed by me floating arround, maybe six total..... Ah, but how do we know that it's really you making this statement, and not some evil NSA spoofer? What people need to do is to make their key-signinging policies available _signed_ with their private key; that way at least we would know that the entity signing the keys and the entity claiming that this is its policy are the same. This helps, but we would then still need to trust that the entity is telling the truth insofar as its key-signing policy is concerned. - Ted

allegedly (:-) writes:

...

key-signinging policies available _signed_ with their private key; that I noticed in the pgp docs that there is a "signature classification field" which has a (rather small) set of reserved values, only one of which is actually implemented: 10 - Key certification, generic. Only version of key certification supported by PGP 2.0. Material signed is public key pkt and User ID pkt. 11 - Key certification, persona. No attempt made at all to identify the user with a real name. Material signed is public key pkt and User ID pkt. 12 - Key certification, casual identification. Some casual attempt made to identify user with his name. Material signed is public key pkt and User ID pkt. 13 - Key certification, positive ID. Heavy-duty identification efforts, photo ID, direct contact with personal friend, etc. Material signed is public key pkt and User ID pkt.

...

we would then still need to trust that the entity is telling the truth

I think we probably need a similar "web" certifying operational procedures. (That is, I believe, one thing that the PEM hierarchy claims to provide -- the institutional signature providers are auditted, etc. to guarantee that they provide the claimed level of security.) Some people trust my signatures more than other signatures because I'm already known to be somewhat "paranoid" w.r.t. security matters... _Mark_ MIT Student Information Processing Board Cygnus Support

 allegedly asks:
>> If you meet someone claiming to be John Gilmore,
>> how will you know he's not an impostor?
	1) I've met him before. (I wouldn't, for example, sign Tim
Jennings' key after meeting him for the first time at a cypherpunks
meeting, since I'd have no other way of identifying him. You, on the
other hand, may be someone I've met before (do you think so?) so I
might...) I've interacted with him to a reasonable extend, both
socially and technically (including one interview with John Markoff.)
	2) He signs my paychecks -- which is "good enough", since the
checks clear :-) 
				_Mark_ 
				MIT Student Information Processing Board
				Cygnus Support