aptitude update "BADSIG" error

[Nick <nick@glimmer.demon.co.uk>]

While I'm looking at aptitude, it seems worth mentioning a problem I've
been seeing since Etch was released: that is 'aptitude update' downloads
the updated package lists (or not, if they haven't changed), and then
reports that the GPG signature on something (that is not clearly
identified) is invalid.  On every occasion, the solution is simply to
rerun 'aptitude update', which then completes successfully.

I remember seeing someone post (can't find it now) that they thought
this was due to an incorrect/inconsistent repository, and that the rerun
works because it picks up a different repository machine in some kind of
DNS round-robin server cluster.

If that's the case, why hasn't the repository error been corrected by now ?

Here's an instance from 22.Nov.2007 :

ETCHBOX:/etc/apt# aptitude update
Get:1 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release.gpg [189B]
Get:2 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release [22.5kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.de.debian.org etch Release.gpg [378B]
Hit http://ftp.de.debian.org etch Release
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.de.debian.org etch/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Get:4 http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages [216kB]
Hit http://ftp.de.debian.org etch/main Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages
Fetched 238kB in 1s (200kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
W: GPG error: http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release: The
following signatures were invalid: BADSIG A70DAF536070D3A1 Debian
Archive Automatic Signing Key (4.0/etch) <ftpmaster@debian.org>
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems

ETCHBOX:/etc/apt# aptitude update
Get:1 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release.gpg [189B]
Get:2 http://ftp.de.debian.org etch Release.gpg [378B]
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release
Hit http://ftp.de.debian.org etch Release
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://ftp.de.debian.org etch/main Packages/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages
Hit http://ftp.de.debian.org etch/main Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages
Fetched 190B in 0s (522B/s)
Reading package lists... Done

Anyone got any clues about this ?
Does anyone else see the syndrome ?

Cheers,
Nick Boyce
-- 
'If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church'