Re: [openpgp] Overhauling User IDs / Standardizing User Attributes

[Wiktor Kwapisiewicz <[e-mail]>]

Hi Leo,

>> But I'm not in favor of other attributes:
>>    - "role" (e.g. "Qubes OS developer"), who would verify that? Probably
>> only some kind of master Qubes key should sign it but then how do we
>> know if this is a correct master Qubes key? Wouldn't e-mail in form of
>> [e-mail] better express that? (for the record I also
>> don't like "project X signing key" comments but that's another story),
>>    - "pseudonym", also not clear what are the rules of signing this ID,
> 
> Well, I don't really like them either, but that'd be a way for people to
> have a place to put the information they currently appear to want to put
> in their User ID fields. The aim of these fields is mostly to avoid
> misuse of other fields.

I think the root of the problem is that people either input something 
because there is a Comment field, or they think they need to input 
something there (e.g. "Work").

In the first case it's slowly getting better as tools as gpg have 
sensible defaults now (for example, they don't ask for comment when 
creating keys).

In the second case a good solution would just be educating people (for 
example making them familiar with this timeless piece:
https://dkg.fifthhorseman.net/blog/openpgp-user-id-comments-considered-harmful.html 
).

> I'd think the concept of saying “a key is valid” is likely a problem
> anyway, as a key is always valid, and the only thing that can be checked
> is the validity of the association between a User ID and a key (for the
> WoT, there is no need to have a key “valid” for trusting it, so I guess
> the change shouldn't generate any issue).

By "valid" I meant the strict technical term used by gpg (see e.g. this 
excellent resource:
https://www.linux.com/learn/pgp-web-trust-core-concepts-behind-trusted-communication 
).

> So this would require quite some changes especially around the user
> interface, that couldn't just display a valid User ID as “key handle” as
> is currently done by at least GnuPG and Enigmail, but would also have to
> reconstruct something intelligent to display based on the set of
> validated User Attributes.

Exactly. And this kind of modification that requires changing all tools 
along the path, for a standard so widely used as OpenPGP can be hard to 
pull off.

Kind regards,
Wiktor