[wellylug] GPG Question

[David Murray]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2006, Jethro Carr wrote:

> hi all,
>
> I have a question/issue with GPG.
>
> I will be changing my primary email address in the near future, and the
> current email address will be deleted.
>
> However, I have various signatures against my current UID. To change my
> email address, it appears that I have to delete this UID and create a
> new one.
>
> Will I lose all the signatures that people have made against this UID?
> And is there anyway around this?

I thought that you yourself make your own GPG signature that you then give 
out to other people so that they know your email is from you. A GPG 
signature is made against a name:

(ie **thepersonsnamethatgoeshere** <email.address at domainname.somewhere>)

and its corresponding email address:

(ie thepersonsname <**this.email at address.that.goes.here**>)

with an optional comment, not against a user name or user ID.


All you'd need to do is to create a new key pair using kGPG, the only 
information you'll need is a name, an email address, and an optional 
comment. Then select key size and method of encryption.

Once you've created the keys then export the public key into a plain text 
file.

Email everybody a copy of that plain text file for them to import into 
their keyring.

You can create keys for any combination of name, email address and 
comment.

Once you know your new email address you'll then be in a position to make 
your new keys.

No change of User ID required, but you will, of course, need to update 
your email settings to use the new email address.

You can have a GPG signature for any name and email address, quite 
separate from your login ID


Regards

David Murray