Slashdot Mirror
Organizing Large Key-Signing Events?
FooBarBaz asks: "I'll probably be organizing a quite large (read ~ 300+ people) PGP/GnuPG-Key-Signing-Event. Everyone suspiciously eyeing each others ID and reading fingerprints to everyone else is quite out of the question with such numbers. How would you organize something like that and still be able to select 'I have checked very carefully' when GPG asks?"
get all the attendees to bring ID in 3 forms. Utility Bill, Photo ID (passport/driving license), and a Cashcard/Bank statment. These 3 forms of ID will get you pritty much anything in the UK, from loans to mobile phone contracts.
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
What the hell is the article talking about?
Someone explain this to me. I haven't used pgp in years and even then, it was just me and 3 buddies.
Is the use of keys so widespread that people need to meet to identify themselves? If 300 people 'know' each other on-line, then why the hell do they need to meet to exchange keys? You'd think you could trust that anonymous person you've been chatting to for 3 years.
Again, I may have blown this out of perspective, but what the hell if this talking about?
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
If you can't check, you shouldn't trust. By trying to bypass some of the checks, you bypass your own security and the security of those who trust you.
I deviated from the topic in my last comment, so heres a proper look into it.
What you could possibly have are Authencators at the event, when people enter the event there ID and methods of validation can be checked. This way it can be free-for-all signing once inside as people know they are validated. Of course this brings up a few more questions:
I would think that elected authencators would be the best idea, elected by the mass to authencate people's IDs, in that way people would trust the authencators...to a degree. Also as for not a full ID, maybe name tags with there authencation level "Full Trustable" or "Semi Trustable" etc...u get the idea
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
...looking at the article submitter "FooBarBaz" and convulsing in laughter?
Have a group of 10 individuals (changing constantly) do the initial verfication of the IDs (passport, etc), then if it passes this test, display the IDs on the wall using a projector, while displaying the live-image of the guy/girl in another image on the wall. Now, if anyone does not say "BOOOOOOOO!" I think he has been pretty well verified.
Where can he find a supply of 300+ tinfoil hats?
If you don't know everyone at the party, then why are you having one?
0 .html
Didn't someone who went to jail in the last few years for computer related crimes admit that he went to DEFCON to collect keys for the FBI?
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44007,0
1) Get everyone to mail their fingerprints to the organiser beforehand
2) Set aside some time for verification. Get a big projector
3) Get people to come up one by one, show their id and verify that their fingerprint is correct
4) Remind everyone to check that the email addresses on the key are actually owned by the person owning the key (use that key to encrypt a message to each address with a unique cookie in. Ask the recipient to send it back to you either unencrypted or encrypted with your key).
The last step is important, since otherwise I can claim to be billg@microsoft.com and you signing my key states that you believe me to be billg@microsoft.com. I can then send mail signed with that key, and people within your web of trust will get a message saying that there's a valid signature and that the sender is believed to be billg@microsoft.com.
It really is important to verify all the information in the key, not just the name of the person.
I'm no expert, but I thought that part of the idea was that people sign the keys of people they actually know. This forms an interlocking verification -- a web of trust.
It sounds like you are trying to build a "monolith of trust." Maybe you are having trouble because your idea goes against the grain.
-Peter
Just get everyone to come along with 50-odd copies of their fingerprint/address/etc. Everyone can wander around, introducing themselves to each other and exchanging fingerprints. Why not combine the practical with the social? Lord knows the type of people who go along to key-signing parties need all the help they can get:)
It would be even nicer to live in a country where everyone has a universally accepted form of ID (rather than proof of identity being dependent on whether I can pass a driving test/have my own utility bills/have my own credit card/etc).
Those of you who are too paranoid to not use PGP are the same ones who are too paranoid to have government issued identification.
Check out how this was done at years past at the Ottawa Linux Symposium.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
here.
But you're right, there ought to be a little bit more granularity in the trust specfications.
[Reminds me of when my brother in law sent me a Power of Attorney so I could act in his behalf for his minor son.
I didn't tell him that I was thereby enabled to do a lot financial transactions on his behalf, sell his house, etc.]
They need a few more questions, like:
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Hint for the stupid: State ID card = Valid ID. Just like a driver's licence, but you can't use it to drive with. I've got both.
Remember that Americans take the federal system very seriously. Sometimes this is good, sometimes not. Either way, it's not going to change (unless we repeal the Constitution - and that will not happen. Our officeholders and military are sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution itself, not the country.)
This is in multiple FAQs, the best of which is the top match on Google for "keysigning party". Read it. But here's the basic idea.
That's the basic idea. You can also do this as a mob, but for 300 attendees, that may be suboptimal.