pgp-identities: A Steemit Topic for Publishing PGP ID Info on the Blockchain

This post introduces "pgp-identities" as a Steemit topic for publishing PGP keys and associated identifying information.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, Gnu Privacy Guard) is a public-private key system used for encryption and signing documents. A critical component of document signatures is the need to reliably store verification keys for public access, in a manner that renders the public key very difficult or even impossible to change.

Traditionally, public keys are stored at centralized key servers such as pgp.mit.edu or keyserver.ubuntu.com. Although these key servers are highly reliable, they nevertheless are centralized storage and are therefore susceptible to compromise, outages, or even termination of the service itself.

The present category (pgp-identities), aims to address the vulnerabilities and impermanence of centralized PGP key servers by suggesting that Steemit users post their PGP keys and ID information on the Steem blockchain.

A format for the post is proposed as follows:

• One line describing the post. Example: "PGP Key Information for James Stroud"
• A blank line
• Author's known home page wherein a link back to the Steemit GPG-Identites post can be found. Example: "Homepage: http://www.jamesstroud.com/"
• A blank line
• An optional list of other pages that identify the PGP key owner
• A blank line
• Optional biographical information
• A blank line
• The PGP public key in armor exported format.

A complete example will be made available at @jamesstroud/pgp-identity

Discussion and debate of this idea is encouraged to be kept within the thread created by the present post.