Re: Why use pgp?
On Fri, 9 Jan 1998, Tim Thomson wrote:
> I know why you would want to use it to send encrypted messages, but why do
> you want to sign your messages?
Well, we use it to sign other things. Like, for example, when I upload
a new debian package, I sign it so that the people who run ftp.debian.org
(and eventually you) know that that package really came from me -- I put
my name on it, so I'd like to make sure noone's releasing stuff under my
name without my authorization. By the same token, you'd like to make
sure that I'm the person who did it, so that if there's a bug, or if it
releases some horrible plague on your computer, you can get ahold of me.
:)
Newsgroups which are moderated (you can't post directly to them -- someone
makes sure that the post is relevant) usually have the moderators pgp-sign
the posts to insure they've been read by the moderator prior to public
posting.
> reading is from who they say they are? Commercial users sure : they need
> to know they aren't reading messages from the competition, but why us in a
> mailing-list?
Some people just have pine set up to auto-sign everything.
> I'm perfectly happy setting up pgp and pine-pgp on my system, I just
> wanted to ask if it's worth it, as I'm only going to be posting to here,
Sure. It's not tough to set up, and you'll need it if you ever become a
maintainer, or anything else. Pgp fingerprints and key id's are rapidly
becoming like Driver's Licenses on the internet -- everybody wants you to
produce one when you sign up for things.
Will
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| harpo@udel.edu lowe@cis.udel.edu lowe@debian.org |
| http://www.cis.udel.edu/~lowe/ |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. |
| -- Taken from Hennesey and Patterson, |
| _Computer_Organization_And_Design_:_The_Hardware_/_Software_Interface_ |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-user-request@lists.debian.org .
Trouble? e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .
Reply to: