Re: Keysigning without physically meeting ... thoughts?
On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 07:54:51 +0200
Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de> wrote:
> On Tue, 31 May 2005 14:13:54 -0600, "Wesley J. Landaker"
> <wjl@icecavern.net> wrote:
> >Right, but they have to get it notarized (or forge a notary's seal, which is
> >a criminal offense, at least in the US) which requires government ID
> >(again, at least in the US).
>
> The entire procedure is quite US centric. I don't understand why you
> US guys are so fond of your notaries.
Because they do less in Common Law countries than in Civil Law
countries.
"In the United States, generally speaking, a notary public is a
public official appointed by the government to serve the public
as an impartial witness."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notary_public
> Over here, it's a three digit
> bill for the notary to open the office door and to offer you a chair,
> so there might be cultures where one thinks twice or even three times
> before having something notarized.
>
> Additionally, the web of trust is the web of trust because it is
> entirely self-contained, without putting any trust on government and
> state official. Your suggestion violates this principle by moving the
> verification state to the notary.
>
> Even if the notary were sufficiently advanced to offer PGP key signing
> with her official key this were not good enough for Debian, since the
> Debian web of trust explicitly relies on being self-contained. You'd
> need to have a DD notary, which at this point makes the signature
> valid because of the DD property, and being notary becomes irrelevant.
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