newbie question about identities

[Erwan David]

Le Fri  3/10/2003, Atom 'Smasher' disait
> >> if one wants to use multiple IDs (and keep each ID isolated from all
> >> other IDs), is it necessary that each ID has it's own key-pair?
> 
> 
> > What you're missing is that you want to keep things apart, but put
> > them together. If you want nobody able to relate your boith IDs use
> > different keys.
> >
> > You can have several keypairs.
> ==================================
> 
> yeah... i figured out that part... the question is whether or not that's
> the proper (or only) way to keep separate identities isolated from each
> other, or if there's another way.
> 
> according to [my understanding of] the documentation, it says that you can
> have multiple identities sharing a key-pair (which is correct), and it
> seems to imply that that those identities are isolated from each other
> (which seems to be incorrect).
> 
> i guess i'm trying to clarify whether the problem is in the
> implementation, the documentation, or just my understanding of it... it
> seems like the handbook is advocating something that's not quite right,
> and i'm trying to figure out which way(s) are right. i'm also trying to
> verify that the documentation is either incorrect or misleading.

They can be technically separated, but each private key is assumed to
have one only user.

Thus if you use a key with ID A, then same key with ID B, people can
easily deduce that ID A and ID B are IDs of the same physical personn.

IDs are isolated inside th OpenPGP system, but you do not live in this
system, you live in real world, where people can deduce thing from
different sources.

-- 
Erwan