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Hash: RIPEMD160

Efficient Group Key Signing Method
Revision 1.5

Len Sassaman and Phil Zimmermann

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In order to make key signing parties run more efficiently, we propose a
new method of doing mass fingerprint verification.

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1. Participants in the key signing submit their keys to the signing
organizer, with unnecessary signatures and user-ids trimmed off.
Participants may be required to sign their submission message in order to
prove ownership of their key.

2. The signing organizer compiles the key information (including the key
fingerprint, user-id, key-id, and key size) in a text file and makes it
publicly available. Keys should be numbered sequentially, and multiple
keys by the same owner should be grouped together.

3. The signing organizer takes the hash of the text file (using a secure
hash function such as SHA-1 or RIPEMD-160), and brings this to the key
signing. The hash information should also be posted publicly for sanity
checking purposes. (Different text file formats will result in different
hashes, due to line ending variations.)

4. Each person wishing to sign the keys on this paper obtains the text
file from its public location, and independently obtains the hash
checksum.

On most Unix systems, the program sha1sum is available. Alternatively,
GnuPG can be used to determine the hash output. Syntax is:

"gpg --print-md sha1 filename" or
"gpg --print-md ripemd160 filename"

5. Participants bring a hard copy of this text file and a copy of the
hash checksum to the key signing. Participants who wish to have their
keys signed should verify the fingerprint on the paper against their
actual key prior to the event.

6. The checksum output is read aloud to the group. Participants confirm
this sum with the independently obtained checksum of the file prior to
actually signing any keys.

7. Each person wishing to have his key signed verifies to the group that
the fingerprint and key information presented in the text file is indeed
the correct information. A simple assertion that "yes, this information is
correct" is sufficient. 

For large groups, the process may be expedited by instructing the
attendees to line up according to the number next to their key
information.

8. Identity verification is done according to the individual policy of
those people signing keys. (Note that the level of identification an
individual requires may vary greatly from person to person, and should not
be dictated by the key signing organizers.)

9. Participants opting to sign later obtain the public keys (either from 
the signing organizer, or from a public server) and confirm that the key 
fingerprints and other information match that reported in the text file. 
They may then sign the keys. 

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The rationale behind this method is that, by placing all the fingerprints
in a text file and providing the hash, significant time can be avoided
without a decrease in security. Each individual is responsible for making
sure his or her fingerprint is correctly reported, and every person
signing is guaranteed to have identical fingerprint lists. We expect this
method to reduce the time involved in actual key signing parties by half.


Thanks to Werner Koch, Peter Wan, Randy Harmon, Patrick Feisthammel, Robyn
Wagner, Rodney Thayer, David Stoler, John Kane, Lucky Green, Peter
Palfrader, the attendees of the First PGP Keyserver Manager Symposium, and
many others for their help in fine-tuning this process.

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