On Mon, 27 Jan 2003 11:06:27 -0500 Seneca <seneca-cunningham@rogers.com> wrote: | On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 02:51:39PM +0000, debian parisc wrote: | > forgive me for my ignorance, but I see a lot of emails on this list with | > PGP signatures. Exactly what purpose does it serve having PGP as part of | > your signature? They just look like a string of characters that could have | > been made up to me. | > | > It maybe because I receive most of the emails from this list in windows95 | > (I'm at work), that they have no significance. | | The signatures are a way of verifying the sender and content of an | email. The sender of a message has two keys, a private key, and a | public key. The sender signs the message with the private key, and the | signature can be verified with the sender's public key. If the contents | of the message are changed, the signature does not match the message. | | -- | Seneca | seneca-cunningham@rogers.com | But the senders public key must be retrieved from a key-server and added to your own key-list before an automated check is possible. mess-mate -- Computers are like air conditioners, they are useless when you open Windows.
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