Weaving a PGP Web of trust..proposal? comments? (fwd)

[Denis.Russell@ncl.ac.uk]

At 1:05 am +0100 18/8/98, Ian D. Goodyer wrote:
>...  Personally I do not see a problem with
>the government (that already issue my driving licence, birth certificate
>and passport) from authenticating an electronic certificate (an electronic
>passport if you like). For that matter I do not see a problem with a
>government approved third party certifying my key.  The trouble I have is

I have no problem with *anyone* certifying my key, as long as the
certification by some specific body is not *mandatory*. There must be the
freedom for "consenting adults" to use keys that are not certified within
any official framework.

>when they want to give me a copy of a key that they have produced or get a
>copy of the one that I have produced.   That seems to be the major problem.
> Maybe you could explain why that is necessary or even desirable.

Agreed.