Re: kernel.org status: establishing a PGP web of trust

Adrian Bunk
2011-10-05T07:54:44Z

On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 07:17:30PM -0400, Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
> Hi -
>
> On Wed, Oct 05, 2011 at 01:39:32AM +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>
> > [...] But the semantics of PGP key signing is that you certify that
> > you verified that a photo ID of that person matches the name on the
> > key. [...]
>
> But that's begging the question. The semantics are what you want them
> to be. Some keysigning parties take this super seriously, and maybe
> with strangers there's some room for this. But in the end, when *I*
> see a key with someone else's signature on it, there is no proof how
> rigorously they investigated the person. The "reliable identity" part
> of the web of trust is only one hop deep.

That is a rigid policy, but not the only one.

And it has practical limitations - "Key must be signed
by H. Peter Anvin" might be a consequence for kernel.org.

What policy is now used at kernel.org now is exactly the question
I asked in [1], and where I'm still waiting for an answer from hpa.

Other organizations like Debian have a clear and public policy on
what is required for the user identification part for uploading to
the archive [2], and I expect the same for kernel.org.

> - FChE

cu
Adrian

[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/10/3/362
[2] http://www.debian.org/devel/join/nm-step2

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