SKS-Keyserver returns negative timestamp

Jan Girlich vollkorn at cryptobitch.de
Mon Feb 26 18:42:00 CET 2024


Hi Andrew,

On Mon, 2024-02-26 at 17:14 +0000, Andrew Gallagher wrote:
> On 26 Feb 2024, at 14:29, Jan Girlich <vollkorn at cryptobitch.de>
> wrote:
> > 
> > I am doing a request to an SKS keyserver (sks.pgpkeys.eu) and
> > receive
> > the following response:
> > 
> > 'pub:AC71EF0964192842B15AFE6417EDE60510000001:0:0:-62135596800::'
> > 
> > How is the timestamp '-62135596800' to be interpreted?
> 
> It would normally be interpreted as “seconds before the epoch”, but
> in this particular case the key is unparseable, so the number is
> meaningless. Keys can be unparseable for many reasons, but the most
> common one is the use of an obsolete primary key algorithm, such as
> RSA512 or Elgamal encrypt-and-sign.

thanks for this explanation. I know that this key worked fine from the
same keyserver before. Should I be worried about the integrity of the
web of trust with regard to corrupted keys? Or could it be that since
this key has been revoked that the keyserver is giving nonsensical
responses on purpose?

Cheers,
Jan



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