keyservers

[gerry_lowry (alliston ontario canada)]

AFAIK you can publish your key to https://keyserver.pgp.com/vkd/GetWelcomeScreen.event;
it will be synchronized AFAIK;  you will need to confirm every so often
that your key is valid so PGP do not drop it.

You can publish to other keyservers and your public key
will not find its way to the PGP Global Directory
 (https://keyserver.pgp.com/vkd/GetWelcomeScreen.event) AFAIK.

I've been advised to avoid MIT's keyserver because apparently
it's not well maintained.  (I think it was MIT, could be some other server).

Other members of this mailing list can give you much better advice.

Also check Google for sources like
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_server_(cryptographic);
remember that anybody can contribute to wikipedia articles.

Your question about finding keys:
  GnuPG has a find option ... point it at a keyserver to retrieve.

You can use ID, e-mail address, and possibly other
data to retrieve the key(s) you require.  Again, other
 members of this mailing list can give you much better advice.

g,