Python Software Foundation Member Events

PSF Member Meeting

• There will be a PSF member meeting on Thursday, March

  25th, from 5pm to 7pm, meeting room to be announced. The [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-members/2004-January/000973.html Proposed agenda] is available to psf-member mailing list members.

PGP Key Signing Party

• [mailto:barry@python.org Barry Warsaw] proposes to organize a PSF member PGP key signing party. It seems like the best time to conduct the party is just after the PSF meeting. Here is some information on key signing procedures for noobs:

  • If you don't know how to generate a key, see [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-members/2004-January/001006.html Neil Schemenauer's quick guide], but please do not send your keys to Neil.

  • Here's a decent [http://www.cryptnet.net/fdp/crypto/gpg-party.html Keysigning party HOWTO]. It's a good, if verbose set of instructions and background on key signing.

  In summary, do the following:
  • Generate a key pair
  • Send your public key to a designated keyserver. I've been using horowitz.surfnet.nl lately since last year I had problems with some of the other keyservers, and this one seemed to work well for both Thomas Wouters and I. If you upload your keys early enough, it should propagate to the other keyservers.

  • Bring this information with you to the key signing party. We're not going to do a centralized list, we're going to read this information out when we check IDs. Note however that you want to print this out and bring it with you. You shouldn't generate it on your computer at the party, for reasons described in the HOWTO. Specifically, you'll need:

    • Your key ID
    • Your key fingerprint
    • Your key size and type
    • Your name
    • An email address that is signed by your key. For example, my information would be:
    • Key ID: ED9D77D5
    • Fingerprint: D3 34 F2 5F D7 14 E0 90 62 03 EF 2D 7E 4A A5 98
    • Key size and type: 1024 bit RSA
    • Barry A. Warsaw

    • barry@python.org

  • Bring the following required items to the key signing party:
    • Yourself
    • Positive picture ID
    • Your key id, key size and type, and hex fingerprint.
    • A writing utensil (pen/pencil).

    • The key signing party HOWTO linked above recommends against you bringing your computer, but we weren't that strict last year <wink>. If you do bring your computer, please don't use it to produce any secret information (i.e. don't type your passphrase in at the party).

  Note that your fingerprint might look different than mine. It may be displayed as 10 blocks of 4 hex digits. Mine prints as 16 blocks of 2 hex digits because it's a pretty old key.

General Information on PGP and GPG

• Here are some more helpful links about public key encryption in general:

  • Why PGP/GPG keys are a good thing to have: http://www.keyserver.net/en/info.html

  • GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) http://www.gnupg.org

  • PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) http://www.pgpi.com

  • Installing GPG on Windows: http://www.glump.net/content/gpg_intro/html/2_Installing_GPG.html

  • Installing GPG on Linux: http://webber.dewinter.com/gnupg_howto/english/GPGMiniHowto.html

  • Installing PGP on Windows: http://www.pgpi.org/products/pgp/versions/freeware/winxp/8.0/

  • Installing PGP on Mac OS X: http://www.pgpi.org/products/pgp/versions/freeware/mac/8.0/