[22] in Cypherpunks
Re: PGP: pgp -ke
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)
Wed Apr 28 18:04:13 1993
To: Chuck.Lever@umich.edu
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 28 Apr 93 14:51:45 -0400.
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 17:46:36 EDT
From: Derek Atkins <warlord@Athena.MIT.EDU>
Hi.
A signature on a key is a cryptographic signature of the key and
userid. Therefore, you cannot remove your userid from the key and
hope to keep the signatures valid.
The other problem is that once other people have your userid on your
key, which is neccessary for them to sign it, then you need to have
them remove it, too, etc.
Basically, signatures and userids currently act like viruses... Once
they escape, its nearly impossible to contain them again....
-derek
Derek Atkins, MIT '93, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Secretary, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
MIT Media Laboratory, Speech Research Group
warlord@MIT.EDU PP-ASEL N1NWH
