email hashes in PGP keys as protection against spam

Hauke Laging mailinglisten at hauke-laging.de
Mon Oct 5 20:27:01 CEST 2009


Am Montag 05 Oktober 2009 schrieb Robert J. Hansen:

> Proposals like this come up a lot.  I have yet to see one which I think
> really understands the problem.

It seems we have to make clear what the problem is we are talking about. I 
think for you the problem is "fighting spam in general". That is a noble 
aim but has nothing to do with my proposal.

My aim is to let people publish their keys without being afraid that *this* 
action leads to (more) spam. Have you considered that some people are not 
willing to use spam filters for certain addresses?

My aim is not to get rid of spammers by blocking their main source of new 
email addresses. Obviously that would not be key servers.

It is not the task of gpg development to solve the spam problem. But IMHO 
it is one of its task to avoid unnecessary spam problems which arise 
directly from the use of the software.


A second reason to do this is privacy. There is no reason to allow easy 
queries the email addresses somebody or an organization uses.


Hauke



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