[OTR-users] Newbie questions about verifying your buddies' fingerprints

[Benjamin Esham]

Ian Goldberg wrote:

> Benjamin Esham wrote:
>
>> I should be verifying my buddies' fingerprints before I start
>> conversations, right? [snip]
>
> Everything you say is correct.  In the new gaim-otr, there's more help
> text (both in an expander in the "unknown fingerprint" dialog, as  
> well as
> in web-based help reachable from various places in the app) to  
> explain the
> process.

OK.  Maybe it's just because I'm using Adium and not Gaim, but in any  
event
I never saw this part of the process explained.

>> If it is true that you should verify your fingerprints, would it make
>> sense (as another poster just asked) to publish my OTR fingerprint
>> online, signed by my GPG key?
>
> Yup, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do.  [Make sure to include
> your IM name and protocol along with the fingerprint in the signed
> message, though.]

OK, done :-)

>> (If /that/'s true, is there any particular reason why the window
>> displaying the fingerprint in Adium won't allow the fingerprint to be
>> copied, and even disappears when switching to another application?)
>
> Can't help you with that; I don't use OS X.  Evan's responsible for  
> the
> OTR integration in Adium X.  Evan, can you speak to this issue?

To be fair, this is probably a bug, not an intended feature.  (It is a
rather annoying bug, though; 40-character hashes sound like a great idea
until you have to manually retype one, switching applications every 4
characters :-))

Thanks for clearing up these questions!

Cheers,
--
Benjamin D. Esham
bdesham at gmail.com   |   http://bdesham.net   |   AIM: bdesham128
"The wizards represent all that the true 'Muggle' most fears:
They are plainly outcasts and comfortable with being so. Nothing
is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed
misfit!"                                          — J.K. Rowling
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