(This came just to me, not to the mailing list. I'm assuming Bob intended to reply-all and just hit the wrong button. If I'm in error, Bob, please forgive me.)
> What would be no use, and possibly harmful, would be to sign that > certificate just because you had seen it a couple of times - unless > you've met him and certified in person by some means that he is > indeed the owner of that pseudonym you cannot ask other people to > accept your opinion as to who he is or might be by signing his key. This depends on what a certification means. You have a belief that a certification must, _a priori_, be connected to a legal identity. This isn't necessarily true. Imagine there are thousands, millions, of self-styled prophets who announce tomorrow's lottery numbers. They sign each pronouncement. One particular lottery prophet has always been right. Someone then asks you, "So this lottery prophet, 0xBADD00D5F00DBAD, is he for-real?" And you could say, "All I know is, the person who uses that certificate has always been right so far." And that would be a certification, and that would be a perfectly appropriate usage of certification. If other people want to project onto your certification that the prophet's name is Maurice Micklewhite, or whatever -- that's their projection and their folly, not yours. Your certification was accurate and appropriate. > Sorry, I don't believe in gods, ghosts or pseudonyms - none of them > exist. Neither does "Bob Henson". The collection of bits that represent the glyphs that make up "Bob Henson" has no more connection to you than the word "gift" does to a ... well, to something. In German it's poison, in English it's a present. Neither one is right or wrong. What matters is whether we can use a pseudonym to identify a figure, not whether that actually happens to be the person's given name. Look at how many people have read the teachings of Jesus Christ. Are his teachings any different just because his name was actually Isho? Err -- well -- maybe it was Isho. Probably. But it was also probably Yeshua ben Yosef. Christ grew up speaking Aramaic in conversation and Hebrew in the temple. He had two names: in Aramaic he was Isho, in Hebrew he was Yeshua, and after his death accidents of transliteration into Greek turned Yeshua into Iesous, which then turned into Latin as Iesus, and then when Latin invented the J- letter he became Jesus. Look at how many names that guy's had over the years, and during his life *no two groups could agree on his legal name*. Look at William Shakespeare. We've got six of his signatures, and they all have different spellings of his name: * Willm Shakp * William Shaksper * Wm Shakspe * William Shakspere * Willm Shakspere * William Shakespeare ... and these were all recognized as his legal name. (All six signatures are on legal documents.) Names are tremendously fluid instruments. Charles Martel, the hero of France, didn't actually have a last name. "Martel" is an appellation he picked up on the battlefield: it means "hammer". Chuck the Hammer was so named because of how he beat the Moors at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. Within a few years, the "pseudonym" of Martel became his very real last name just by dint of how many Frenchmen would look at you funny if you suggested his name was something *other* than Martel. If you think pseudonyms don't exist, well--there are two possibilities I can see. If you're saying that "all names are really pseudonymous to one degree or another, so it doesn't make sense to call some names true names and some other ones fake", then I agree with you. If you're saying that "only true names exist and I insist on calling Jesus 'Isho', Charles Martel 'Charles', William Shakespeare 'Wm Shakspe', and so on," then I think you're quite wrong. :) I dunno. If any observant Jews want to argue with me that the Tetragrammaton is the original true name and that everything else is pseudonymous, I think that would be a fascinating theological argument we should have off-list. :) > If there is no fairly fixed procedure and standard for signing There have been a large number of well-meaning, well-intentioned people who have wanted there to be one--but there isn't one and never has been. > Why in all the years of use of PGP/GnuPG have the pundits always > advocated and laid down rules for key signing parties and face to > face meetings? Nobody has. They've laid down *guidelines*. "We think this is a pretty good procedure to follow, and here's why. Ultimately, though, it's up to you." Last year I was sitting in the audience at a keysigning event emceed by Samir Nassar. Samir was absolutely fastidious about how he did things, but at the same time, he wasn't walking through the aisles of chairs making sure that everybody was double-checking two forms of government ID. How could he? Crazy to even suggest it. He did what he could, accepted there was a lot he couldn't do, and did his best to keep people informed of the process and why it was the way it was. Couldn't ask for better than that. > If I am obliged (and there you are totally and utterly wrong - I have > no such obligation) to accord everyone the privilege of being totally > careless and random about signing keys It isn't that you're obliged. It's that *you can't stop them*. If you want to be King Canute, well--the ocean's that way. Enjoy the tides. As for me, I have learned the wisdom in accepting that some people will just be foolish and there's nothing I can do to stop them. The best I can do is to keep my wits about me and learn who acts foolishly and who acts wisely. :) _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users