Assignment 3 — Web of Trust

Assignment 3 is due 10/19/18 on or before 11:59:59pm MST.

Details

Who do you trust? How do you know they are who they say they are?

Your goal in this project is to learn about public key cryptography, gpg, verifying identities, and the web of trust.

You’ll need to: create a gpg public/private keypair, register your public key with the submission server, get your key signed by 20 of your fellow students in this class, and avoid signing any fake keys (you will need to verify your classmate’s identity).

1. Generate a gpg key

github has a good gpg key creation guide.

Create a public/private keypair for this project that has a name that is exactly what your name is in ASU’s system, has an email (doesn’t matter what the email address is, and does not have a comment. Other students need to verify your identity, so the name part must be exact. You can reuse an existing gpg keypair only if the names match, otherwise you’ll need to create a new key.

The submission website will show you exactly what we have for your name (this was taken directly from the course’s enrollment page).

Important note

DO NOT LOSE YOUR KEYPAIR

Backup your keypair, if you lose the key once you’ve uploaded it to the server then you will not be able to finish the assignment. Every ASU student has a Dropbox account, so use that or some other mechanism to backup your keypair (including your secret key).

2. Upload your public key

Upload your public key to the submission server.

The server will then check to see if your public key is valid, and if it is will sign your public key with the course’s keypair, which has a fingerprint of AB5DA476235FFCB86BB86CE1230BFFA86996BE19 (you should download this key, verify the fingerprint, and import it into your gpg keyring).

The server will also generate an adversarial keypair with a random name but with the same email as your key. You will be able to download this adversarial keypair, (both the public and private key).

3. Have your public key signed by at least 20 fellow students (45 points)

Use the Internet to search for great information on signing public keys.

• GPG manual
• Another guide

The signatures must be from a valid key in this class: How will you know?

4. Sign at least 20 of your fellow students public keys (45 points)

Using what you learned from the above, you must sign at least 20 of your fellow students' public keys.

5. Do not sign invalid keys (10 points)

Of course, the only way that the web of trust works is if keys are signed only when the identify is validated.

If you do not sign any invalid keys, you will receive 10 points.

If you trick people to sign your adversarial key, you will earn EC (and hacker cred).

6. Submit your public key and public adversarial key

Finally, submit your public key (with the 20 signatures) and your public adversarial key (if you received any signatures).

Submission Instructions

You will need to submit your final public key, along with 20 signatures (this is included by default when you export your key), and your adversarial public key (if you tricked people into signing the adversarial key).

Your README file must contain your name, ASU ID, and your thoughts on the usability of GPG and key signing, and how you tricked people to sign your adversarial key.

Submission Site

Create an account to submit your homework on the course submisison site.

Please don’t forget your password.