Learn, hack!

URL

http://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/attachments/685-slides_breaking_down_the_web_of_trust.pdf

File name

685-slides_breaking_down_the_web_of_trust.pdf

File size

728.8 KB

MD5

8f11f6f02eb02d6803ee274c3957be75

SHA1

e4f96ef3eb84c4f633e9b2bfdaa94faee39cfb22

Even with tutorials on the WoT and good trust policies the concept of "trust" can still be hard to grasp. Here we'll look at trust metrics, ways of using current trust systems better, and some non-crypto applications of trust. The web of trust best known for its use in PGP is now used in a number of other applications and is established as a good method for doing non-centralized PKI. But how good is it? How does one define a metric for trusting a trust metric? We have keysigning parties and extensive tutorials on good trust policies, but a lot of people still don't understand the basic concept of "trust," especially when it is superimposed on the world of graph theory. We'll take a look at the web of trust as it is currently used, including statistics on the PGP WoT and what that means in practical terms. And from there on, it's all about trust, including the trust metrics involved (and why they could be a lot better), and current "correct" practices for establishing trust (and why they could be a lot better). To wrap up, we'll look at the possibilities for doing other interesting (but non-cryptographic) applications involving trust.