Nerd Alert - PGP Key Signing Party?

[sloppy]

Looks like I was fast enough -- ordered my ticket. Now I gotta figure out if I'm just going to visit Atlanta just for PP, or if I should turn it into a bigger vacation.

I have one idea concerning ProgPower but it may be very lame. Is there much overlap between "computer nerds" and metalheads? If so, would anyone be interested in a PGP/GPG Key Signing Party? It seems when there's a situation where you meet up with a bunch of people you don't know IRL, and if they're geographically scattered, it would be PERFECT for "growing the web."

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, then like I said, this is probably a lame idea.)

 

[kellsco]

HEY!!!

This is wayyyyy off topic, but I live in Albuquerque too! LOL Small world. I live in the north valley.

 

[Mephistopheles]

So....Seeing as most of the people that voted have no idea...

What the hell are you talking about? It might be a good idea. I don't know...

 

[ProgMetalFan]

Huh?

 

[Bryant]

Isn't PGP an encryption for e-mail and such ? I know what it is from reading about it, but maybe I don't grasp the practical applications so much. We can reply to each other here, use a chat or just exchange e-mails. The PGP sounds a little techie to me, but then aain,I don't know much about a PGP key party. I've never been involved in one, nor have I used PGP.

Bryant

 

[sloppy]

Isn't PGP an encryption for e-mail and such ? I know what it is from reading about it, but maybe I don't grasp the practical applications so much. We can reply to each other here, use a chat or just exchange e-mails. The PGP sounds a little techie to me, but then aain,I don't know much about a PGP key party. I've never been involved in one, nor have I used PGP.

Bryant

Yes, PGP is typically used for email encryption and authentication.

The catch is that, like all public-key systems, if you're paranoid (and being paranoid is the whole point ) then you have to guard against "man in the middle" attacks, so you can't use non-secure means to exchange keys with people. Thus, you have to meet real human beings in real life. The Internet won't do; if you already had a reliable (keep in mind we're thinking in paranoid terms) way to communicate the keys over The Internet, then you wouldn't need PGP.

"WTF does this have to do with ProgPower 4?!" people are probably thinking. Very little, I admit, except that conventions or anything else where people meet and have time to prepare in advance (aha!), can be used build very strong webs. (That's all a key signing party really is.) See http://www.pgpi.org/doc/pgpintro/ and look at the section near the end, where it talks about "Web of Trust". Even if I don't know you, you might be a friend of a friend of someone I need to send a secure message to someday (or vice-versa), thus the usefulness of the web.

I see from the poll that there aren't a lot of PGP users here. That's fine. There aren't a lot of metalheads at computer-nerd meetings either. But it was worth a shot, you never know. If anyone reads the PGP intro link (above) and becomes interested, I would be happy to exchange keys with you at PP4.