Re: Why are in-person meetings required for the debian keyring?
On 2015-02-11 20:17, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
> Following that argument, I think a key should be signed and included in
> the Debian keyring if it (the key) has a history of high quality
> contributions. Meeting the keyholder in person to look at his passport
> doesn't seem to add anything of particular value here. Why would I care
> under what name he has been contributing?
I think there is another flaw in here that hasn't been addressed yet:
the above system would enable any existing DD to clandestinely gain
another key in the keyring.
Say DD "Jekyll" wants a second key. He reduces his workload under his
original persona, and diverts all his efforts into a new persona "Hyde".
For him, the net contribution effort is zero (save for occasionally
having to ask for sponsorship under "Hyde"); he's spending exactly as
much time for Debian as he was before. After a year or two, without the
personal verification step, his new key is accepted into the keyring,
and he now has two keys, one of which cannot be linked back to him.
I assume that scenarios like the above (although almost absurdly
extreme) are the reason why nowadays at least two signatures are
required in order to be accepted as DD, whereas a few years ago, it was
only one (but in that case, the one signing DD and the advocating DD had
to be different). This is pure speculation, though. Corrections and
insights would be appreciated.
Regards,
Christian
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