Re: [gentoo-dev] Keysigning at LWE

[Fred Van Andel <fava@gentoo.org>]

Patrick Kursawe <phosphan@gentoo.org> wrote:
(07/30/2003 08:40)

>On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 10:35:05AM -0500, Corey Shields wrote:
>> - The list of valid keys will be made available after LWE and everyone
>> can sign each valid key from the original list and send it back to the
>> owner.  
>
>Perhaps I misunderstand you, but are you actually encouraging people
>to sign keys they did not personally verify?
>
>What's the idea behind this, if weakening the web of trust isn't? :-)
>
>Just wondering,
>
>Patrick	

I think some people are getting too hung up on the identity thing.

Within the context of the gentoo community does it matter what the real name of someone is?  The only identity that ultimately matters is the identity that has cvs access, and to a lesser extent the identity that appears on irc.

If seemants real name were not Seemant Kullen but rather Joe Smith, I wouldn't care because it doesn't matter to me.  Seemants identity is not his name but rather his contribution to gentoo.  And his contribution is independent of his "real" name.

For many things the concept of "real" identity is important. I don't think gentoo has to be one of them. 

To me a signature on a gentoo address means that I am verifying that this identity is a gentoo developer, and I don't need to see government ID for that. In fact official ID gets in the way. I know carpaski is a gentoo developer, but I don't know that this particular individual who is presenting me with ID that says "Nicolas Jones" is in fact carpaski.  He could be a completely different "Nicolas Jones" and I have no way of telling them apart.

I realize this might piss off some and I am sorry, but this has been bothering me for some time and I want to vent.

Fred Van Andel
fava@gentoo.org
GPG KeyID: 76526AD599455482  
GPG fingerprint: 64E4 4BAB 9C99 D565 3E3C F5D0 7652 6AD5 9945 5482


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