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> PGP absolutely got this part right Lol no. There is no mechanism to invalidate keys by the domain owner, while it uses email as one of the core identifiers.

by csdvrx 5y ago

> PGP absolutely got this part right Lol no. There is no mechanism to invalidate keys by the domain owner, while it uses email as one of the core identifiers. I purchased a cool domain, which had PGP users who published their keys to various key servers. Their keys have no expiration, while I'm in control of the domain... PGP was good, 30 years ago. But technology has evolved, along with the understanding of the problem. I made a reply about SSHFP records (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29212552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29212552), to push server keys in the DNS: that + DNSSEC means you remove the problem of initial trust (deciding to add a server to your known_host on the first connections) Now imagine if something like MX records could also contain SSH keys for the mail users: you'd solve the problem of mail encryption on a global level. People who want to send me encrypted mail could ask my server for my key, DNSSEC would prevent tempering with that, and if I lose access to the domain, there would be no issue with stale keys from old PGP directories. As for scalability issues, DNS is perfectly done (with caching, etc) to handle that easily. Like you, I could say "SSH got this part right" - but no. Again, technology has evolved. The "only" problem would be correlation attacks, and I think that's a big one, in the age of surveillance. Ideally, we'd have something like bitcoin key-derivation from a seed key, where you'd have: - a key you publish to receive encrypted email, - derived public keys, one per server, so that you do not risk correlation attacks This is a great article, because it looks at the ubiquity of SSH keys, and how the technology is better than PGP keys, to advance the problem - say by signing git commits and tags. I hope we'll also use the advances from other technologies.

exabrial 5y ago
> Now imagine if something like MX records could also contain SSH keys for the mail users Unfortunately that leads to this: now imagine said MX servers were under whatever political party you oppose.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  > Unfortunately that leads to this: now imagine said MX servers were under whatever political party you oppose. Hmm, what could I do? Maybe change my MX records to move from mailgun to postmark or any other mail provider? Or self host? But that's if we assume the key servers would have to be the same as the MX servers, because of some technological limitations. Alternatively, it could be done like SSHFP where SSHFP records exist independently from the CNAME records: then the problem disappear, as you as the domain owner can delegate the MX part to one company, while only entrusting yourself with the publication of the public keys. If you mean "but what about gmail users" - if gmail servers are under whatever political party you oppose, you've got a much bigger problem, and I don't think there can be a technological solution.
upofadown 5y ago
Here is an example of how to change the email address associated with a OpenPGP identity on a key server: * https://coderwall.com/p/tx_1-g/gpg-change-email-for-key-in-pgp-key-servers https://coderwall.com/p/tx_1-g/gpg-change-email-for-key-in-p... If you want to invalidate the identity entirely you just upload the revocation certificate.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  I don't think you understand: the key is not mine, it's from the previous users of that domain, so I can't apply these instructions as I don't have their private keys! To make things worse, there is no mechanism to let the key server know that the emails associated with these keys are invalid. And I have tried my best to get in touch with maintainers to explain the stupidity of this situation, but there is apparently no way besides revocation certificates to deprecate or delete a key. Or, if I give a less generous interpretation, maybe they want to keep pretending that PGP still has a lot of users? So a known bad key is associated with my domain, with no way to fix that - except maybe waiting for PGP key servers to die and be finally replaced by something better. This is why I call that an outdated technology. I'm sure it was good 30 years ago, but it should have evolved.
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by csdvrx 5y ago

exabrial 5y ago

> Now imagine if something like MX records could also contain SSH keys for the mail users Unfortunately that leads to this: now imagine said MX servers were under whatever political party you oppose.

csdvrx 5y ago
> Unfortunately that leads to this: now imagine said MX servers were under whatever political party you oppose. Hmm, what could I do? Maybe change my MX records to move from mailgun to postmark or any other mail provider? Or self host? But that's if we assume the key servers would have to be the same as the MX servers, because of some technological limitations. Alternatively, it could be done like SSHFP where SSHFP records exist independently from the CNAME records: then the problem disappear, as you as the domain owner can delegate the MX part to one company, while only entrusting yourself with the publication of the public keys. If you mean "but what about gmail users" - if gmail servers are under whatever political party you oppose, you've got a much bigger problem, and I don't think there can be a technological solution.

upofadown 5y ago

Here is an example of how to change the email address associated with a OpenPGP identity on a key server: * https://coderwall.com/p/tx_1-g/gpg-change-email-for-key-in-pgp-key-servers https://coderwall.com/p/tx_1-g/gpg-change-email-for-key-in-p... If you want to invalidate the identity entirely you just upload the revocation certificate.

csdvrx 5y ago
I don't think you understand: the key is not mine, it's from the previous users of that domain, so I can't apply these instructions as I don't have their private keys! To make things worse, there is no mechanism to let the key server know that the emails associated with these keys are invalid. And I have tried my best to get in touch with maintainers to explain the stupidity of this situation, but there is apparently no way besides revocation certificates to deprecate or delete a key. Or, if I give a less generous interpretation, maybe they want to keep pretending that PGP still has a lot of users? So a known bad key is associated with my domain, with no way to fix that - except maybe waiting for PGP key servers to die and be finally replaced by something better. This is why I call that an outdated technology. I'm sure it was good 30 years ago, but it should have evolved.

deleted 5y ago

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