asymmetry of 'adduid' and 'deluid'

[David Shaw]

On Jul 24, 2012, at 9:58 AM, vedaal at nym.hush.com wrote:

> Recently added a uid and deleted a uid to one of my keys.
> 
> Found that to add a uid, gnupg asks for the passphrase, but to 
> delete a uid, it does not.
> 
> (Doesn't really matter much, since the secret key is required for 
> both,
> but was curious if there is any underlying reason why gnupg does it 
> this way.)

To add a UID, GnuPG needs to generate a binding signature from the primary key.  To generate a signature, we of course need the passphrase.  To delete a UID, GnuPG just needs to throw away packets.  No signature needed, so no passphrase needed.

Note that to revoke (rather than delete) a UID involves making a signature as well, and will also require a signature.

David