Mailing List Archive

On Fri, 7 Apr 2000, Brian Galbraith wrote:

> I have recently added some UIDs to my keys, but unfortunately have been
> unable to Change the Primary UID used . I have read the manual, but have
> been unable to find anything which works.

There is not clear way to say what's the primary user ID is. The most
logical one to me, is to say that latest one created is the primary
one. However there are problems with that: You way want to change
some attributes (like preferences or expiration time) and this way the
timestamp of the self-signature (which is the only way to tell you
when a UID has been created) changes, or you have a private and a
business user ID.

OpenPGP has a primary key flag, but ist is allowed to put it on more
than one user ID. Bottom line is that there is no clear semantic
defined in (at least) gpg.


Werner


--
Werner Koch OpenPGP key 621CC013
OpenIT GmbH tel +49 211 239577-0
Birkenstr. 12 email info@openit.de
D-40233 Düsseldorf http://www.openit.de

On Fri, Apr 07, 2000 at 12:19:58PM -0700, L. Sassaman wrote:

> key with the most recent primary key flag sub-signature bit set, and treat
> that as primary. That solves all the problems associated with this.

Sorry to differ here. (the word "all")

I've had to create new UIDs in the past, due to temporary email
addresses and a variety of other situations. Many times I have desired
to *not*-change the primary UID or to change it to one that is not the
most-recently-created. In an ideal world, I would have the option of
specifying this.

Do I consider this a show-stopper problem with GnuPG? Not at all. :-)
But it definitely can be a frustration for the person wrestling with this.

--
Please (OpenPGP) encrypt all mail whenever possible. Request the following
Public Keys for Lazarus Long <lazarus@overdue.ompages.com>

Type Bits/KeyID Fingerprint DSA KeyID: vvvv vvvv
ElGamal: 2048g/41783186 47A0 0929 CD9F B53E 49C0 F06C 560E F574 ED0D F80C