Re: PGP : what to do when a user ID has multiple RSA keys

[Alan Olsen <alano@teleport.com>]

At 07:25 AM 3/11/96 +0000, you wrote:
>My DOS version of PGP 2.6.2 came with a built in PUBRING.PGP 
>containing two keys ( 1024 and 512 size ) with the same user ID .
>For testing  purposes I wanted to encrypt a message with the 512 
>length key , but only the 1024 size key could be used .
>
>How can I select the right key , apart from making a clone 
>PUBRING.PGP with only the key I want to use ?

You need to use the hex id of the key.  (I have this problem as well.)

To get the hex id of the key, try "pgp -kv <yournamehere>".  That will give
you the hex id (right after the key size). 

For example, if -kv returned:

2048/F7D02799

you would use "0xF7D02799" instead of your name.  (No quotes and case does
not matter.)

This does have some Cypherpunks relevence...  Many of the PGP front-ends I
have seen do not use the key ID, and thus, do not pick the correct keys in
this curcumstance.  (And some use it for some, but not all, operations.)

But then, I would like to see key management handled alot differently than
it is now.  (For example, I would like to see PGP use multiple keyrings with
an order of precidence.  Search the most used keyring first and then check
the mega-keyring if nothing is found in the first one.  I expect that kind
of feature is a ways off...)
---
Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction
        `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key 
                http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ 
  "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon