key signing

Tuyen DINH tuyen.dinh@risc.fr
Fri Jan 3 08:48:02 2003


dshaw@jabberwocky.com (David Shaw) wrote:
 > On Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 03:18:12PM +0100, Tuyen DINH wrote:
 > > 
 > > Hello,
 > > 
 > > When you want to sign a key you have just imported, in which cases will
 > > you choose one the following choices :
 > >  
 > >    (0) I will not answer. (default) ?
 > >    (1) I have not checked at all.   ?
 > 
 > If you type a question mark (?) when GnuPG asks this question, you
 > will get a long explanation.  That text is:
 > 
 > --------------------------
 > 
 > When you sign a user ID on a key, you should first verify that the key
 > belongs to the person named in the user ID.  It is useful for others
 > to know how carefully you verified this.

I wondered : if I have no idea about the key's authenticity, is it worth
it to sign it ? (except sign it locally)

 > "0" means you make no particular claim as to how carefully you
 >     verified the key.
 > 
 > "1" means you believe the key is owned by the person who claims to own
 >     it but you could not, or did not verify the key at all.  This is
 >     useful for a "persona" verification, where you sign the key of a
 >     pseudonymous user.

What is the interest for others to know that I couldn't check its
authenticity ?

Or maybe this is just an information for myself ?


-- 
Tuyen