Introduction to Cryptography with Coding Theory, 3rd Edition
by Wade Trappe, Lawrence C. Washington
15.6 Pretty Good Privacy
Pretty Good Privacy, more commonly known as PGP, was developed by Phil Zimmerman in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In contrast to X.509 certificates, PGP is a very decentralized system with no CA. Each user has a certificate, but the trust in this certificate is certified to various degrees by other users. This creates a web of trust.
For example, if Alice knows Bob and can verify directly that his certificate is valid, then she signs his certificate with her public key. Charles trusts Alice and has her public key, and therefore can check that Alice’s signature on Bob’s certificate is valid. Charles then trusts Bob’s certificate. However, this does not mean that Charles trusts certificates that Bob signs – he trusts ...
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