[Sks-devel] How to make an impressive peering request

[Jeremy T. Bouse]

    Setting aside and assuming you've already ready the wiki [1] on what
is considered best practices... Let's see if we can't give some pointers
if you're going to make a private email request to peer with another SKS
operator and not make a less than stellar impression doing so.

    If you've had the good sense to set your own Key ID on your own
server config so it is listed on your servers stats page, it might stand
to reason that other server operators would do the same thing. That
means sending an encrypted email address to a key that's nearly 20
decades old with obviously newer keys generated and published is
probably not the best impression. Granted, I would have to give credit
for searching [2] and at least not using the *oldest* key which was
already revoked; however, given that keys list their generation date, as
well as dates when signatures have been added showing activity on said
keys would be the first clue this probably isn't the best key to use.
Also, if a key owner has the presence of mind to include a policy URL
[3] in their key signatures that might also tip your hand to a good
place to find out their current key. Though all of that is completely
irrelevant if you checked the servers stats page to get the key the
operator lists.

    I'm not going to state who I received the email from as I'm sure it
was a pleasant email, though I'll never be able to read it as I believe
I lost the private key data for that particular key back in early 2000
when I had a drive failure. As I've seen it said before when you're
asking to peer, you're asking someone who is most likely a total
stranger to trust you. Making a bad first impression doesn't help much
in that category.

1. https://bitbucket.org/skskeyserver/sks-keyserver/wiki/Peering
2.
http://sks.undergrid.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=jeremy.bouse%40undergrid.net&fingerprint=on&op=vindex
3.
http://undergrid.net/legal/gpg/policy/20111224/67dbe13b5a8d42041f0b09e2b7d244f842fccb8ca3bfc70b793eee3e65286dc1

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