Re: knowledge and belief

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

~mark:
>In PGP, you have keys passed around, but what needs certification is
>whether the key actually belongs to the person it claims to.  I can sign
>Lojbab's key, to certify that I am convinced that it really belongs to the
>person it says it belongs to, and then John could be "sure" that the key
>belongs to Lojbab, IF he is also "sure" that my key belongs to me
>(i.e. that the signing key is valid) AND if he is satisfied, knowing me,
>that I am not ditzy and would not sign a key without being certain that it
>really belonged to the person.  This trust propogates in this manner,
>forming what they call the web of trust.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm a little less confused now (for some
reason I thought lojbab was talking about voice pitch when he referred
to someone's "key", perhaps because that's the only key that one has
inherently.

But I still don't understand the game (is it a game?). What does
PGP stand for? What is the objective? Is there a winner (the one
who first guesses which key belongs to each participant?) Or is
it a cooperative effort, everyone wins when all the keys found
their owner? How can the first person to sign a key tell who the
key belongs to?

uanai co'o mi'e xorxes