11–20 of 72 posts
I don’t understand how GPG maintainers think they can implement something better (function and performance-wise) than a proper database engine. Also I don’t think GPG will ever need to handle keyring lager than 140TB [1].
Can we stop saying that pgp is busted and just talk about how the keyservers are the problem with how people decides to exchange keys ? I don't use key servers. So when I get an encrypted message from my friend I have no issues. Allowing a third party such as a key server to play some role in veifiing the authenticity of a key is basically broken from tht start, and has nothing to do with pgp it's self.
OpenPGP is broken in the sense discussed in this newsletter: the keyserver system interacts in a catastrophic way with GnuPG's naive key parsing code, and OpenPGP's deployment at scale depends on keyservers. OpenPGP is broken in other ways! But this is a headline given to a particular current events story about OpenPGP.
Once you hand off the validation to a 3rd party that does nothing to validate other than a voting system of other people then you are done. You basically put your PGP keys on reddit and decided the key is valid because it made it to the front page.
PGP may be many things, but it is not broken, and saying so is blaming the tool for a obviously bad use of it.
Can we stop saying that pgp is busted and just talk about how the keyservers are the problem with how people decides to exchange keys ? I don't use key servers. So when I get an encrypted message from my friend I have no issues. Allowing a third party such as a key server to play some role in veifiing the authenticity of a key is basically broken from tht start, and has nothing to do with pgp it's self.
If you don't have an effectively auditible trail of knowledge to be able to tell if someone attempted trickery then it doesn't serve the full purpose - but that doesn't scale well.
Very nice article, I'll definitely subscribe! > For example, it was never clear to me whether signing a key meant that I’d verified the person’s identity, or that I then trusted them to verify other people’s identities. Signing means you verified identity. Trust to verify (also called ownertrust) is controlled by a different setting and you can trust someone to verify other keys fully or marginally (or not at all if…
I think he understands that in general. The problem is that, in practice, the "web of trust" depends on significant numbers of users trusting other users to verify still other users on their behalf, which is in practice something most people are (or should be) loath to do.
I actually don't think there is a problem with the concept of a web of trust per se. It's a fact of life. I think that the software doesn't help you use it appropriately. Even if Alice says that a person is Bob, I should not be fooled into thinking that it really is Bob, or that Bob is trustworthy. All it says is that when Alice talks about "Bob", she means this person who we're calling "Bob". If "Bob" then introduces me to "Cathy", we shouldn't be fooled into thinking that it really is Cathy. However, it's still very useful to know that Cathy is Bob's friend who is Alice's friend. If Alice tells me to talk to Bob's friend Cathy, I can be totally comfortable talking to the "Cathy" that Bob introduced me to.
Just to make a more concrete example, imagine that you have a problem with your software. You contact the company that supplies it and somehow determine that the person you are contacting is really operating on behalf of the company. They refer you to second line support. It would be incredibly useful to know that the second line support person you are talking to is, in fact, the second line support person you've been directed to and not a man in the middle. You don't care who that second line support person is. Maybe they aren't using their real name. Maybe they are an illegal immigrant. None of that matters to you. All you care is that they are the person you were directed to. And if they direct you to third line support, you care that the person you are talking to is the person you were directed to.
People get hung up on the wrong things with PGP IMHO. They check people's passports and include photos in their keys, etc, etc. I mean, great if you are the government trying to ascertain if a key really belongs to a citizen, but completely useless for most practical purposes. All you care about is that chain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OpenPGP is broken in the sense discussed in this newsletter: the keyserver system interacts in a catastrophic way with GnuPG's naive key parsing code, and OpenPGP's deployment at scale depends on keyservers. OpenPGP is broken in other ways! But this is a headline given to a particular current events story about OpenPGP.
Then there is no need to say OpenPGP is broken. Once you hand off the validation to a 3rd party that does nothing to validate other than a voting system of other people then you are done. You basically put your PGP keys on reddit and decided the key is valid because it made it to the front page. PGP may be many things, but it is not broken, and saying so is blaming the tool for a obviously bad use of it.
I don't think you can fall back on this being an "obviously bad use of the tool", by the way, since it's a pretty core use of OpenPGP. I don't use keyservers either (or didn't, when I still used PGP, which I actively avoid doing now), but I'm outnumbered by the people who do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think he understands that in general. The problem is that, in practice, the "web of trust" depends on significant numbers of users trusting other users to verify still other users on their behalf, which is in practice something most people are (or should be) loath to do.
I think we need to rely on this at some point, though. If my friend Alice introduces her friend Bob to me, that's my only way of determining that when Alice is talking about Bob, it's this Bob and not a different Bob. I actually don't think there is a problem with the concept of a web of trust per se. It's a fact of life. I think that the software doesn't help you use it appropriately. Even if Alice says that a perso…
Can we stop saying that pgp is busted and just talk about how the keyservers are the problem with how people decides to exchange keys ? I don't use key servers. So when I get an encrypted message from my friend I have no issues. Allowing a third party such as a key server to play some role in veifiing the authenticity of a key is basically broken from tht start, and has nothing to do with pgp it's self.
> At least at some points we need proper transactional behaviour and Sqlite implements that by talking a temporary copy of the database - not an option for large keyrings. I don’t understand how GPG maintainers think they can implement something better (function and performance-wise) than a proper database engine. Also I don’t think GPG will ever need to handle keyring lager than 140TB [1]. [1]: https://www.sqlite.or…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we need to rely on this at some point, though. If my friend Alice introduces her friend Bob to me, that's my only way of determining that when Alice is talking about Bob, it's this Bob and not a different Bob. I actually don't think there is a problem with the concept of a web of trust per se. It's a fact of life. I think that the software doesn't help you use it appropriately. Even if Alice says that a perso…
The kernel of the conceptual problem with this web-of-trust feature is in another Filippo post[1]: when I sign someone's else's key, it is difficult (in practice: impossible) to really know the provenance of that key. The signer could have gotten the key from a keyserver (in which case you now transitively trust the keyserver). Or they could have gotten it from a random email saying "this is my new key". You don't kn…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The kernel of the conceptual problem with this web-of-trust feature is in another Filippo post[1]: when I sign someone's else's key, it is difficult (in practice: impossible) to really know the provenance of that key. The signer could have gotten the key from a keyserver (in which case you now transitively trust the keyserver). Or they could have gotten it from a random email saying "this is my new key". You don't kn…
provenance?