git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: Lack of detached signatures

From
Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date
Sep 29, 2011, 01:41 UTC
Message-ID
<20110929014141.GA23890@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To
<20110928230958.GJ19250@thunk.org>
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 07:09:58PM -0400, Ted Ts'o wrote:
Show 10 quoted lines
> On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 06:25:43PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> > [1] This is a minor nit, and probably not worth breaking away from the
> > way the rest of the world does it, but it is somewhat silly to sign the
> > compressed data. I couldn't care less about the exact bytes in the
> > compressed version; what I care about is the actual tar file. The
> > compression is just a transport.
> 
> The worry I have is that many users don't check the GPG checksum files
> as it is.  If they have to decompress the file, and then run gpg to
> check the checksum, they might never get around to doing it.

It shouldn't really be any more cumbersome. But at the same time, it's different than the way everyone else does it, so any minor convenience we get is probably nullified by simply confusing anybody.

I wonder how many people actually check gpg checksums on downloaded files. I don't usually. But I do expect something like a package manager building from upstream source (e.g., freebsd-style ports, or distro packagers pulling a new upstream) to bother to check it.

> That being said, I'm not sure I have a good solution.  One is to ship
> the file without using detached signatures, and ship a foo.tar.gz.gpg
> file, and force them to use GPG to unwrap the file before it can be
> unpacked.  But users would yell and scream if we did that...

And rightly so. I mentioned the cost of implementing the mechanism before. If it's just "Junio runs gpg and throws the detached signature up on the ftp site", it's not a big deal. But if it's "you can't download and install git until you have gpg installed", that is raising the bar quite a bit.

It should be the recipient's decision how much they want to trust the data. We would just be helping them out by providing more information.

-Peff
Previous: Joseph ParmeleeNext: Olsen, Alan R
Message 21 of 24 in “Lack of detached signatures”
  1. Joseph ParmeleeSep 27, 2011
  2. Junio C HamanoSep 28, 2011
  3. Michael WittenSep 28, 2011
  4. Olsen, Alan RSep 28, 2011
  5. Carlos Martín NietoSep 28, 2011
  6. Joseph ParmeleeSep 28, 2011
  7. Junio C HamanoSep 28, 2011
  8. Michael WittenSep 28, 2011
  9. Matthieu MoySep 28, 2011
  10. Jeff KingSep 28, 2011
  11. Ted Ts'oSep 28, 2011
  12. Junio C HamanoSep 29, 2011
  13. Ted Ts'oSep 29, 2011
  14. Junio C HamanoSep 29, 2011
  15. Ted Ts'oSep 29, 2011
  16. Sverre RabbelierSep 29, 2011
  17. Ted Ts'oSep 29, 2011
  18. Sverre RabbelierSep 29, 2011
  19. Joseph ParmeleeSep 29, 2011
  20. Joseph ParmeleeSep 29, 2011
  21. Jeff KingSep 29, 2011
  22. Olsen, Alan RSep 29, 2011
  23. Joseph ParmeleeSep 28, 2011
  24. Ben WaltonSep 28, 2011

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.