Re: [Sks-devel] Keys over NNTP

[David Shaw]

On May 28, 2012, at 3:14 AM, Kiss Gabor (Bitman) wrote:

>> It is like news server operation. New servers are completely independent.
>> It is always the matter of local policy what newsgroups and what articles
>> are received and sent from/to what peer partners. Accepting centralized
>> control messages is also based on digital signatures and local
>> decision.
> 
> BTW. What if a newsgroup called alt.gpg.keys was used as an alternate
> channel aside gossip protocol to distribute keys? NNTP transfers zillions 
> of news articles within seconds from Buenos Aires to Tokyo. It is
> quite reliable too.

I've actually suggested something similar to this in the past.  If I recall, it 
was before we had the SKS gossip protocol, back when syncing was more 
difficult.  I wasn't thinking of using an actual newsgroup for this (alt. or 
otherwise), as it seemed impolite to be yet one more dump of binary blobs into 
the news system.  I was thinking more along the lines of using NNTP to get that 
lovely distribution protocol, but not connecting it to the news system (i.e. a 
separate small "news" network among the keyserver sites).  It probably doesn't 
make as much sense these days, with the gossip protocol and SKS available.

Anyway, the idea was that you would inject each key in a single article, but 
set the Message-ID of the article to a hash derived from the key itself (say, 
the key fingerprint).  This allows the natural dupe-elimination ability of NNTP 
to work, so no site would retrieve the same key twice.

David