ubuntu-us-ohio team mailing list archive

[Jacob Peddicord <jpeddicord@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 1:11 PM, John Kennedy <jakenn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> OK, newbie here; what a "GPG signing"?

You can find a lot of info on it here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KeySigningParty

Basically, GPG keys are used frequently online, especially in the free
software world, to verify your identity. If you've even seen an email
start with "---- BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE -----" or have
seemingly-random characters at the end, then the sender is using their
GPG key to sign their message. Others can verify this signature
against that person's public key to verify that it really was them who
signed it.
An important aspect of the key itself is how trusted it is. You can
make your key more trustworthy by getting it "signed" by others in
person to verify your identity. That's the point of these signing
parties.

-- 
Jacob Peddicord
http://jacob.peddicord.net/