Download User's Guide

PGP 8.0
User’s Guide
Attribute
Description
Indicates the level of trust you have granted to the owner of the key to serve as an
introducer for the public keys of others. This trust comes into play when you are
unable to verify the validity of someone’s public key for yourself and instead rely on
the judgment of other users who have signed the key. When you create a new
keypair, these keys are considered implicitly trustworthy, as shown by the striping
in the trust and validity bars, or by a green dot and user icon.
An empty bar indicates an invalid key or an untrusted user.
Trust
A half-filled bar indicates a marginally valid key or marginally trusted
user.
A striped bar indicates a valid key that you own and is implicitly trusted,
regardless of the signatures on the key.
A full bar indicates a completely valid key or a completely trusted user.
When a public key on your keyring is signed by another user, the level of
authenticity for that key is based on the trust you have granted to the signer. Use
the Key Properties screen to assign the signer a level of trust: Trusted, Marginal, or
Untrusted.
Expiration
Shows the date when the key will expire. Most keys are set to Never; however,
there may be instances when the owner of a key wants it to be used for only a fixed
period of time. A single key with a clock icon represents a public key or keypair that
has expired.
Creation
Shows the date when the key was originally created. You can sometimes make an
assumption about the validity of a key based on how long it has been in circulation.
If the key has been in use for a while, it is less likely that someone will try to replace
it because there are many other copies in circulation. Never rely on creation dates
as the sole indicator of validity.
Specifying a default keypair on your PGP keyring
When encrypting messages or files, PGP gives you the option to additionally encrypt
to a keypair that you specify as your default keypair. When you sign a message or
someone’s public key, PGP will use this keypair by default. Your default keypair is displayed in bold type to distinguish it from your other keys. If you have more than one
keypair, you may want to specifically designate one pair as your default pair.
To specify your default keypair:
1. Open PGPkeys and highlight the keypair you want to designate as your default
key.
2. Choose Set Default from the Keys menu.
The selected keypair is displayed in bold type, indicating that it is now designated
as your default keypair.
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