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Comment by hannob | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I can use PGP to encrypt e-mail, with all the problems that come with it. However... I don't need a signature from governikus to do this.

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If your PGP key isn't signed by anyone, then there's no way to verify that it's really you - other than contacting you and checking the fingerprint. By having a trusted third party such as Governikus sign it, anyone can verify instantly that _this_ PGP key is actually from a person with a _name_ for which they also have a government ID with that exact name.

I can envision a _lot_ of use cases for having your name publicly recognized by a trusted party.

It becomes an official communication method.

This should allow you to actually send legal save communication to the government.

There is no special legal status attached to that.

Actual electronic signatures recognized by law are not based on GPG.

Isn't that a page from Germany?

Using your eID?

Do you know this or do you assume this?

Yes, my statements are about the legal reality I Germany.

GPG signatures convey no special legal status above regular email even if the key is signed by a government-owned company that verified your eID.

I read it differently.

But let's see how it is currently reading this can become the defacto standard.

And technically it's a good workflow/choice

That service is not new. And nobody seriously considers adopting GPG for that, as it's has serious design flaws.

What design flaw?

My mother would not be able to keep her private key secure.

But that's not the point.

This would even allow companies to offer this for you because the only interface necessary is the key

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