North American Network Operators Group

Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical

Re: public key service

  • From: Randy Bush
  • Date: Mon Jun 26 17:26:40 2000

> Well, the fundamental point you haven't mentioned here is that the PGP
> keyserver network, past and present, is entirely a volunteer-based
> service.

as are almost all the dns root servers.  and, despite occasional hysterical
whining on this list, they provide a serious production service on which we
are all successfully betting our asses.

this is not to say that i do not deeply appreciate the current volunteer
efforts.  but, as we rely more and more on pgp, we need a serious production
quality service.

> One thing I would like to see is more ISPs running keyservers for the use
> of their customers.

i wonder if a few of the large providers might be able to field a production
quality distributed service.  or help the current volunteers to do so.

> I attended the Keyserver Managers Symposium in Holland last month. A lot
> of great ideas were presented, and a lot of problems discussed. One thing
> is clear, and that is that the current PGP keyserver network needs to be
> redesigned if it is to scale to another order of magnitude as far as
> capacity.

plan for a few orders of magnitude.

> I expect that we will see good things happen in this regard in the next
> year or so.

how can providers help?  and now, not in the vague future.

randy