PGP & GPG

The Web of Trust 87

What to Do with Signed Keys

So you’ve signed a key; now what? Just as you learned as a

child, after you’re done with the key, put it back where you

found it. If you downloaded the key from a public keyserver,

you can update the record on that keyserver. If you got the key

elsewhere, return the signed key to the key owner.

NOTE You can send someone else’s public key to an old-style keyserver.

Although you might think this would be a favor, it’s actually

extremely rude. The public key owner might have reasons for not

using a keyserver and might prefer to distribute his public key via

some other method—or he might not want to ...