On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 08:27:58 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 11:25:04 +0530, Ram Kumar via aur-general wrote:
the signature which is attached here with, is a public key of yours and can be used to encrypt the messages which are to be sent to you, and you can decrypt it using ur private key.
Am i understood correctly?
The purpose of signing messages, which is usually frowned upon on almost all mailing lists, ensures that the content of a mail can't be changed without getting attantion and to ensure that the sender _is_ really the sender and not just somebody who pretends to be the sender. This works even while those mails are _not_ encrypted. You need to import the public key, to verify the signed email and you need to maintain a web of trust, to verify the imported key first.
PS: My apologies, I forgot to point out, no, you are mistaken. Actually it is possible to attach the public key to an email, too, but you are referring to the signing. It's the "code" to verify the signed email, not the public key. You still need to get the key from somewhere. Usually it was uploaded to a keyserver from where you could download it and then you need to import the key.