I asked:

3) If I add another email address to my identity (I only have one on it now), is the key as signed at the keysigning automatically valid for that address (or is my question already showing my lack of understanding)?

Wouter replied:

...

That will depend on the participants; some people will sign your new UID, others won't. It may help if you communicate that you have a new UID on your key at the signing party.

Geert said:

...

When signing a key, GPG will ask whether you want to sign all email adresses. Some people won't say `Y' if your new email address is not on the list.

And I'm confused. I really don't understand the mechanics of the keysigning system. You have a series of private keys, they will be collectively validated by a md5 and a sha1 checksum. How does my individual key get signed? Do I have to upload it on the server (see below) beforehand, or so the keysigners have a copy of the key I uploaded to FOSDEM? I was thinking more along the line of adding an email address AFTER the keysigning party. Is that email address (is that considered as the ID) covered by the current keysigning, or should I worry about that at next year's keysigning? Do I have to sign other peoples' keys? So my next question:

4) What is the best way to disseminate my public key, and to get the public keys of my correspondants? I understand there are key servers somewhere, can someone explain how this works?

Geert replies:

...

gpg --recv-key --keyserver pgp.mit.edu <id> gpg --send-key --keyserver pgp.mit.edu <id>

You can also put the keyserver in your ~/.gnupg/options.

And Wouter says:

...

Make sure the following line is found in your ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf:

keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net

Then, you can search for keys with

gpg --recv-key <data>

where you replace <data> with either the mail address or the key ID of your correspondent.

After signing the key, please do not randomly upload them; you should also attempt to verify that the email address of the key you signed is valid. An easy way to do that is to encrypt and mail the key to the key owner; the 'caff' script can help you with this. You can find caff in the Debian package 'signing-party'; it's a perl script.

I found these lines in my gpg.conf file: keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net #keyserver mailto:pgp-public-keys@keys.nl.pgp.net #keyserver ldap://keyserver.pgp.com Should I have multiple key servers? Should I put pgp.mit.edu in as well? Does it use the hkp:// protocol as well? Does the existence of this line in the config file mean that my key has automatically already been uploaded, or do I need to run a command? Do I need to do anything to update the key on the server before or after the keysigning? Wouter also added:

...

I'll be sure to repeat this at the beginning of the signing party on sunday.

So Wouter, sorry to bother you beforehand, But I like to be prepared, as my Scoutmasters always told me! Thanks, John John Seifarth Words & Wires SPRL Computer Consulting & Language Services rue Valduc 266 1160 Brussels, Belgium Voice: + 32-2-660-3943 GSM: +32 478 42 45 20 Fax: + 32-2-675-3922 john@waw.be