[Enigmail] "Proper" keyserver (WAS How to reset or new create a passphrase?)

Andrew Gallagher <[email protected]> Wed, 13 May 2020 15:25:02 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.mozilla.enigmail.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On 13/05/2020 07:41, Dmitry Alexandrov via enigmail-users wrote:
> Please note, that the only proper keyserver, that is working reliably
> now, is hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com.  If you have been using some
> other one, reconfigure.

Unfortunately since your correspondents may have their own opinions, any
individual decision to anoint a "proper" keyserver will result in
self-isolation. That said, we have recently moved from a largely
homogeneous keyserver ecosystem with a few notable outliers to a
fragmented one where the most common default is so feature-restricted
that revocations no longer work. Therefore, when publishing revocations
your choice is effectively to use a niche keyserver or none at all.

My personal view is that the only way right now to be sure your key
updates (including revocations) reach the widest audience possible is to
publish separately to all of them; and for similar reasons you should
also refresh your keyring separately from all of them (using parcimonie
to hide your footprints if that is a concern).

In the long term I believe this fragmentation is unsustainable. I have
sketched out the bones of a keyserver federation model which can be
layered on top of existing keyservers, subject to the condition that
sufficient information can be extracted from the application logs.
Keyservers would co-operate to the extent that any published key
material could be reliably located, even if some keyservers refuse to
store it for legal or technical reasons.

It differs from the SKS model in that a) only metadata would be
synchronised, not the actual data itself, and b) it would not require
that everyone standardise on a single codebase. It would also admit a
hierarchical model so that local caching keyservers could be created
that would not need to be admitted into the top level of authoritative
keyservers (somewhat like the structure of DNS).

If the community thinks this would be a useful endeavour, I would be
happy to discuss elsewhere (this list is probably not be the appropriate
venue).

-- 
Andrew Gallagher

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