Key Signing Party

GPG Key Signing Party @ eLiberatica 2009

This year, for the first time in Romania, there will be a GPG key signing party at eLiberatica! Bring your identity document (C.I./B.I.) and have your identity checked at the party.

A key signing party is a get-together of people who use the PGP/GPG encryption system encryption system with the purpose of facilitating key signing between them. Key signing parties serve to extend the web of trust. Key signing parties are also great opportunities to discuss the political and social issues surrounding strong cryptography, individual liberties, individual sovereignt, implementing encryption technologies or even future work on free encryption software.

Key signing is act of digitally signing a public key packet and a user id packet that is attached to the key in that public key packet. Key signing is done to verify that a given user id and public key really do belong to the entity that appears to own the key. In more basic terms it is done to verify that the representation of identity in the user id packet is valid. Usually, this means that the name on the PGP key matches the name on the identification the person is presenting to you when asking that you sign their key.