Saturday 15 November 2014

Formal key transitiion to 4096 bit key

Following mini-Debconf and submitting my key to keyring-maint, here's a copy of the note marking the transition. I do retain a copy of the old key: it has not been compromised or revoked (until I'm sure my new key reaches the Debian keyring) and my vote in the GR is validly signed with the old key.

Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 08:11:53 +0000
From: "Andrew M.A. Cater"
To: keyring@rt.debian.org
Subject: Debian RT - new key for amacater
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

pub   1024D/E93ADE7B 2001-07-04
      Key fingerprint = F3FA 2752 1327 7904 846D  C0DE 3233 C127 E93A DE7B
uid                  Andrew Cater (Andrew M.A. Cater)
sub   1024g/E8C8CC00 2001-07-04

pub   4096R/22EF1F0F 2014-08-29
      Key fingerprint = 5596 5E39 93E0 6E2B 5BA5  CD84 4AA8 FC24 22EF 1F0F
uid                  Andrew M.A. Cater (Andy Cater)
uid                  Andrew M.A. Cater (non-Debian email)
sub   4096R/923AB77E 2014-08-29


This is intended to replace the old key by the new key as part of a key transition from old, insecure keys

All the best,

AndyC
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1

iEYEARECAAYFAlRipvgACgkQMjPBJ+k63nvaQACeM9OpQsFb2qzsmNRPH6fwLh5M
zhIAn19XSkKYF85Tj2kvuC5wl7PVSYPS


This because Google (and Planet Debian) are more reliable than my email inbox.

[Keys exchanged at the mini-Debconf have now been signed with the new 4096 bit key]

AndyC

Saturday 8 November 2014

Still at the mini-Debconf in Cambridge

Lots of talks, hopefully being live streamed.

Lots of side chats going on - also a room full of folk typing on laptops while lectures are going on - multi-tasking, as ever.

New ideas bouncing around as people see interesting possibilities - all good fun, as ever.

Friday 7 November 2014

At mini-Debconf Cambridge:

Much unintentional chaos and hilarity and world class problem solving yesterday.

A routine upgrade from Wheezy - Jessie died horribly on my laptop when UEFI variable space filled, leaving No Operating System on screen.

Cue much running around: Chris Boot, Colin Walters, Steve dug around, booted the system usng rescue CD and so on. Lots more digging, including helpful posts by mjg59 - a BIOS update may solve the problem.

Flashing BIOS did clear the variables and variable space and it all worked perfectly thereafter. This had the potential for turning the laptop into a brick under UEFI (but still working under legacy boot).

As it is, it all worked perfectly - but where else would you get _the_ Grub maintainer, 2 x UEFI experts and a broken laptop all in the same room ?

If it hadn't happened yesterday, it would have happened at home and I'd have been left with nothing. As it is, we all learnt/remembered stuff and had a useful time fixing it.
Here at the Debian mini-conf in Cambridge at ARM.

16 developers sat in near-total silence, the only noise keyboards and a server sitting next to me.

Some of them I've seen only on video presentations: one I first knew 20 years ago, one wrote all the HOWTO's I knew a couple of years before that - and was the second Linux user ever.

The release team is in another room behind me: Jessie froze the night before last - whatever else will be said/done, we're on the path to release.

It feels very strange and comforting to see Debian in the round: to be able to talk to someone you might argue with in email and see a real person.

And HUGE thanks to all at ARM for time, effort, chasing around and to Sledge and Jo  Jo most of all for being stuck on a front desk waiting for people :)