Re: Signer's User ID

Werner Koch <wk@gnupg.org> Thu, 21 July 2005 13:37 UTC

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To: Ian Grigg <iang@systemics.com>
Cc: ietf-openpgp@imc.org
Subject: Re: Signer's User ID
References: <87u0iok99n.fsf@wheatstone.g10code.de> <200507211311.58692.iang@systemics.com>
From: Werner Koch <wk@gnupg.org>
Organisation: g10 Code GmbH
OpenPGP: id=5B0358A2; url=finger:wk@g10code.com
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:15:11 +0200
In-Reply-To: <200507211311.58692.iang@systemics.com> (Ian Grigg's message of "Thu, 21 Jul 2005 13:11:56 +0100")
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On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 13:11:56 +0100, Ian Grigg said:

> But it recalls to mind what we do in contract issuance.  In
> our model, we add strings to every keyId in the chain.  These
> "roles" then inform the software of how to prepare and check

This works well when using a new key for each role. 

Assuming you would add the rules as different UID to one key you can't
see from a signature which role/UID was used to sign the document.
The Signer's User ID is a solution to this; however it is far easier
to create separate keys.

> to the users.  That's very important in legal work as anything
> that hides intent in special packets leads to questions as to
> whether the software was doing the right thing.

Agreed.


Salam-Shalom,

   Werner