Introduction
The intent of this page is to explain how you can sing an OpenPGP key.
Then, to get connected to the web of trust, go to the keysinging coordination page.
How to
Step 1: Print your key
The printout of your fingerprint must contain the following information:
- Your first name
- Your last name
- Your e-mail addresses (the ones you use with the key)
- The encryption method and the ID of the key (e.g. 4096R/1A2B3C4D5E6F7G8H)
- The fingerprint itself
You can use this function :
gpg -v --fingerprint 1A2B3C4D5E6F7G8H
Usually, you make several printouts on a sheet of paper. It can for example be the size of a business card. You can also use the gpg-key2ps which is part of the signing-party package to create these printouts as:
gpg-key2ps -p a4 1A2B3C4D5E6F7G8H > out.ps
Alternatively, you can print in one column only to avoid printing issues (for extra wide keys):
gpg-key2ps -1 -p a4 1A2B3C4D5E6F7G8H > out.ps
If you go to a key singing party, you will have to send this information beforehand, and they will then print a list for each participant.
Step 2: Sing your key
Start singing your key fingerprints from the very beginning, omitting unreadable, unprintable and unpronounceable characters. If this seems too difficult to perform, consider using festival:
gpg -v --fingerprint 1A2B3C4D5E6F7G8H | festival --tts
Step 3: Consider doing keysigning instead of keysinging
For more information about keysigning, see Keysigning. Doing that may be a bit less fun than doing keysinging, but will help you grow your web of trust.