PGP keys signed by me so I don't have to validate the same keys again-and-again and can just trust my own paper verified fingerprint in the subsequent validations.
WoT? Web Of Trust
For example, I use Tor Browser everywhere and download it directly from their website. They have signed it using GPG (a OpenPGP implementation) and to ensure it hasn't been tampered with, I have to check that signature and I have two options:
- I can always verify the signature, but that takes time and I would need to verify it from both support.torproject.org and 4bflp2c4tnynnbes.onion. But what if they were compromised or I was under a MITM attack or lazy and verfied only one version?
- (or) I could verify the signing key carefully once, sign (or certify) it by myself and in the future simply verify that my own key is valid (as I have been doing this a few times on the other side of dualbooting and at family).
This second method is also encouraged by Tails.
What if I am wrong and trust the wrong key? I think I am less likely to trust a wrong key by verifying it carefully and signing it once than verifying it separately every time. However if I do sign a wrong key, I can always revoke my signature and then publish the key with my revocation signature on public keyservers (which I don't usually do, while I cannot control what people do with the signatures from this repository).
- I am reasonably certain that the key belongs to whom it claims to belong to or I trust the key to belong to whomever it belongs to.
- I have some need of the key or have attended keysigning party with the key owner.
me/me.ascis just my key and place where I try to keep all signatures it has received. Symlinks are legacy reasons and other me's are also me.
- GitHub, Gitea and GitLab expose user public keys when you append a
.gpgafter their profile page (.keysfor SSH). - The Internet Archive's Waybackmachine is always a good place too especially when using together with official websites.
- Some people have similar projects or webpages for this purpose