Participants of a large key signing party line up in preparation to verify each other's identities prior to signing.

In cryptography, a key signing party is an event at which people present their PGP-compatible keys to others in person, who, if they are confident the key actually belongs to the person who claims it, digitally signs the PGP certificate containing that public key and the person's name, etc. This is one way to strengthen the web of trust. Although PGP keys are generally used with personal computers for Internet-related applications, key signing parties themselves generally don't involve computers, since that would give adversaries increased opportunities for subterfuge. Rather, participants write down a string of letters and numbers, called a fingerprint, which represents their key. The fingerprint is created by a cryptographic hash function, which condenses the public key down to a unique string, which is shorter and more manageable. Participants exchange these fingerprints as they verify each others' identification. Then, after the party, they obtain the public keys corresponding to the fingerprints they received and digitally sign them.

See also: Zimmermann-Sassaman key-signing protocol

External links

• GPG Keysigning Party Howto