Re: [openpgp] email death certificates

[Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>]

David Shaw <[e-mail]> wrote:
    >> Has anyone given any thought to this?
    >>
    >> I suppose it might also apply to "does not work here anymore"

    > There is a "Reason for Revocation" subpacket for the revocation
    > signature.  It contains both a machine-readable byte giving various
    > reasons for revocation (key superseded, compromised, or retired, user
    > ID no longer valid, or a general "other"), followed by a human-readable
    > string.

    > I suppose a death notification would be "key retired", with additional
    > information (if any) given in the human-readable string.  This works
    > with the designated revoker feature as well as the regular (self)
    > revocation, so even if the private key is missing (or, being dead, the
    > owner is unable to enter a passphrase) the key can still be revoked.

The designated revoker is singular.

There is no k-of-n (or rather K) threshold the way that signature on UIDs
works.  If there was N signatures binding [e-mail] to key 0x12345678,
then it would be nice if the self-sign on the key could set a value k,
which if at least K entities revoke their signature (not just expire) with
an identical reason, would signal that the key<->UID is no longer valid.

--
Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-