Secrecy and user trust

[Mike McCarty]

jdow wrote:
> 
> Suppose Fedora generates a new key. They can get it out there by putting
> it on their website, in an update RPM, and in plain textual format in
> the primary download sites. Then I as a user either trust that or find
> I have to take a trip to somebody's office I know is authoritative for
> Fedora and get the key on some portable media.
> 
> Now, I can also check the key if it is uploaded to all the mirrors the
> same way. If I download from a large collection of sites and they all
> are bit copies of each other then either the web of deceit is so large
> we're all lost anyway or I have a good key.

Judy, you make too much sense. This thread has long outlived any
useful function, I think. What you just suggested is the automatic,
normal, natural thing anyone would have, and probably nearly everyone
here already has, think of. I'd also publish MD5 and/or SHA1 hashes
of the files, but that' a minor tweak.

> 
> So the focus of the discussion is silly. Trust is established once, in
> some way. Use the same way again that satisfied you in the first place
> and get on with life.
> 
> {^_^}    <- betting the real problem is "infrastructure."

The only point I saw to the discussion was the first question
posed, which was:

	Since Fedora got compromised, we'd like to know
	what they run on their servers, and whether we
	might ourselves be vulnerable to the same kind of
	attack which compromised Fedora in the first place.
	If so, we'd like to know what the attack was,
	how it succeeded, and how to protect against it.

Recovery seems to me to be obvious and simple. I never saw
(perhaps I missed) an answer to the first question.

Mike
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