Re: [Sks-devel] withdrawal of service: sks.spodhuis.org

[Tobias Frei]

Just saying...

...the person who created that key has finally started a long overdue process. They are likely reading this as well, so: Thank you. This could otherwise have ended much worse.

To the other readers, but only to those of them who do not agree with the following sentences: Please avoid trying to fix symptoms. Go for the root issue, even if it hurts. Don't deny that it does; the whole design of what you have been taking for granted when you learned about PGP needs to be fundamentally rewritten. Until that has happened, I personally believe that every (!) key server administrator should shut down their keyservers, with no exception.

Users, especially commercial ones, are very welcome to notice the impact of the sudden lack of a convenient, free service provided as a voluntary donation by people who are risking their freedom and risking going to jail, on the users' daily work. Users are very welcome to finally notice the problem as well, and users are very welcome to contribute suggestions and code to the further fixing of the fundamentally flawed keyserver network design.

My personal suggestion: Complete pool shutdown until the underlying problem is completely fixed. If it can't be fixed, keep the pool offline. It has been a good, happy time, and one of the next steps can (doesn't have to!) be realizing that it has irrevocably reached its end.

PGP works without keyservers, by the way. It can't be bad for users to finally learn how.

Best regards 

Tobias Frei