OpenPGP Web Key Directory
draft-koch-openpgp-webkey-service-11
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Active Internet-Draft (individual)
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Werner Koch
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2020-11-17
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Network Working Group W. Koch
Internet-Draft GnuPG e.V.
Intended status: Informational November 17, 2020
Expires: May 21, 2021
OpenPGP Web Key Directory
draft-koch-openpgp-webkey-service-11
Abstract
This specification describes a service to locate OpenPGP keys by mail
address using a Web service and the HTTPS protocol. It also provides
a method for secure communication between the key owner and the mail
provider to publish and revoke the public key.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on May 21, 2021.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Koch Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft OpenPGP Web Key Directory November 2020
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Web Key Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3.1. Key Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Web Key Directory Update Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. The Submission Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2. The Submission Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.3. The Confirmation Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.4. The Confirmation Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.5. Policy Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1. Well-Known URI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Appendix A. Sample Protocol Run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
A.1. Sample Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
A.2. Sample Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Appendix B. Changes Since -10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1. Introduction
This memo describes a method to associate OpenPGP keys with a mail
address and how to look them up using a web service with a well-known
URI. In addition a mail based protocol is given to allow a client to
setup such an association and to maintain it.
2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
3. Web Key Directory
A major use case for OpenPGP is the encryption of mail. A common
difficulty of sending encrypted mails to a new communication partner
is to find the appropriate public key of the recipient. Unless an
off-channel key exchange has been done, there are no easy ways to
discover the required key. The common practice is to search the
network of public key servers for a key matching the recipient's mail
address. This practise bears the problem that the keyservers are not
able to give a positive confirmation that a key actually belongs to
the mail addresses given in the key. Further, there are often
several keys matching a mail address and thus one needs to pick a key
Koch Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 2]
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