On 03/01/2020 12:27 p.m., Wilfred van Velzen : August Abolins wrote:

 AA>> I think my old public key is still out there. (I have not
 AA>> really looked for it though. I don't remember the servers I
 AA>> used.)

The one at MIT (which sounds like where I would have submitted my key) but
fails with this:

  --[begin]--
  Proxy Error

  The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
  The proxy server could not handle the request GET /pks/lookup.

  Reason: Error reading from remote server
  --[end]--

I didn't expect that from the great MIT.


 WvV> Afaik most key-servers are connected to each other these days,
 WvV> and exchange keys on a regular basis. So if your key is out
 WvV> there, it might be "everywhere".

Yes.. I notice that keys are now pooled and distributed to other servers.
Things have certainly changed since I first started with PGP in the 90's.

I looked with a few listed here: https://sks-keyservers.net/status/


 WvV> When I search for "abolins" on my (default) key-server it finds
 WvV> 27 keys as old as from 1994. But none include a mention
 WvV> of "august".

Are they *all* from 1994?   1994 sounds about right when I actually submitted
to a server.  I found about the same number of references to abolins as you at
a few random servers from the sks link above. I am surprised that I wouldn't
have included my FN.   I wonder if the last entry in one of those searches
could be it!

pub   512R/246249F7 1994-02-16

The DATE and bit size certainly looks right.  1994 is about the last time I
actually used pgp. And, I am pretty sure the key signature was small before I
learned about the benefits of larger ones.


 AA>> The private key is probably still on a 3S diskette, somewhere.

 WvV> I have a lot of them still around (mainly Amiga formatted).
 WvV> Haven't tried them in a few decades, and it would surprise me
 WvV> if they are still readable.


This is what I did with a bunch of 3 1/2 diskettes a few years ago:

   http://kolico.ca/fidonet/echos/win95/index.html#diskettes



As an aside: I like the "status" page at https://sks-keyservers.net/status/

It would be fun to see a similar live version of something like that for the
modest 900 IP nodes.   ..But I digress.

Cheers!
 ../|ug

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