posting public key on website

Question

Should i put my public key on my website so that people can securely contact me. I have seen personal sites where there public key is at the bottom of the page, how should i include the key in my page, is there a standardized way to include the key, many sites include them at the bottom of the page. such as this site http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/ by the computer scientist Peter Gutmann.

Answer 1

I use key servers such as: (http://pgp.mit.edu/) which provide a decentralized way of exchnaging keys. When I for example add a key to the MIT PGP Server, that key is copied and duplicated across the very large key server network. I would then add the link to the key to my email/website. This cuts down on the time it takes to download each web page and email.

(Note: I personally hate seeing a large footer at the bottom of emails.)

For example, here is my one of my keys:

http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x2948AE802E24CDC3

Answer 2

You sure can put a link to you public key on your personal web site whether it refers to a file on the same host or to some key repository. Keep in mind though, that anyone can read the information attached to that key including your name an e-mail address (if you attached it anyway).

Answer 3

Usually people add the PGP public key to bottom of message (like e-mail, etc) to digitally sign the message. It also allows others to create encrypted messages for them.