Re: [gentoo-project] pre-GLEP: Gentoo OpenPGP web of trust

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 8:56 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> 1. It is entirely customary and therefore requires customized software
>    to use.  In other words, it's of limited usefulness to people outside
>    Gentoo or does not work out of the box there.

This part could be addressed easily by having Gentoo create a signing
key, and automatically signing all dev keys based on LDAP using it.
Then users can trust that one key and inherit trust for the rest.

Users have to opt into the trust model by trusting somebody's key no
matter what.  No reason that couldn't be a centrally-managed one.

I'll also agree with the comment that physically interacting with
people is not all that easy.  There are many areas of the world where
FOSS developers are relatively uncommon, let alone Gentoo ones.
Unless those alternate organizations have VERY broad coverage (such as
an alternative of a notary recognized by any country or something like
that) you're still going to have issues.

> Verify the person's real name (at least for the user identifier
>      used for copyright purposes).  This is usually done through
>      verifying an identification document with photograph.  It is
>      a good idea to ask for the document type earlier, and read on
>      forgery protections used.

"usually"?  "identification document"?  Does this mean that an
appropriate method of verification is entirely up to individual
discretion?  If so that makes the process of getting every key signed
fairly trivial as long as two people have (in?)appropriately-rigorous
standards...

-- 
Rich