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Random GPG key in my Laptop??? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I was creating a new key for pass when I noticed a random expired GPG key assigned to a certain "Roderick van Domburg" in my list of keys. I don't know any Rodericks, and this laptop has been whipped clean.

Should I be concerned? How could this even happen???

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Many tools that use GPG, especially package managers, will download keys so they can verify signatures. It’s nothing to worry about. That developer probably signed something you use.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

The archlinux-keyring package will install a few gpg keys.

But also, the AUR also uses gpg keys to validate things.

Just searching the AUR for one of the repos that Jaffa linked to in another comment...

https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=librespot

Here is the PKGBUILD. Note line 24:

validpgpkeys=('EC57B7376EAFF1A0BB56BB0187F5FDE8A56219F4') ## Roderick van Domberg

And I'm sure if you got through the AUR there are plenty of packages that use this

Many AUR helpers (like paru, or yay, etc), will either auto download these keys for you, or prompt you. Even if you were to build this pkgbuild by hand, unless you removed that line, it would require you to import the key for the makepkg to work. So "how does a fresh arch install wind up with GPG keys that I didn't manually import?" ... the answer is AUR helpers most likely (or you did it manually for a makepkg and just forgot).

It's also worth pointing out that GPG handles signing things, but also signature verification. These are all public keys in your system. Having public keys that have been used for signature verification is perfectly normal and kind of the point. If you had Roderick's private key that would be weird.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Alright, I was really worried that somehow, my computer was compromised. I'm still a newbie 😅.

Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Any of this look familiar? https://github.com/roderickvd?tab=repositories

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Did you install anything from the AUR? roderickvd is the librespot guy, so if you installed that from the AUR it would load his keys

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

And the keyring was originally designed to hold all kinds of (public, not private) keys other then one's own to build out the web of trust, so the intended mode of operation was to have other public keys in there. In practice, I think that most people just have their own keys, though.

Never quite reached the dream of a distributed, verified network.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Was it just the public part of the key, or was the secret key there, too? If it was just the public part, then maybe you imported the key at some time in the past?