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I want to upload my PGP public key on a public server. Till the time PGP was an independent organization, I heard a lot about KeyServers, but after Symantec acquired PGP, what is the future of these servers?

Is there any other alternative way to keep my public keys online?

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Both SKS Keyserver Pool (stats) and PGP Global Directory are online.

I usually use sks-keyservers, since it consists of many servers which synchronize their databased continuously, while Global Directory is a single, commercially operated server.

There also exist pgp.mit.edu (stats) aka cryptonomicon.mit.edu (not part of SKS pool, but does sync with other servers) and keys.gnupg.net pool (stats) (the default keyserver for GnuPG).

Edit: keys.gnupg.net is now an alias for the SKS pool

If your email address is at a domain name you manage (i.e. can have arbitrary DNS records created), it is also possible to publish your PGP key using DNS. The easiest method for that is PKA, which only requires the ability to create TXT records; see the article on publishing PGP Keys in the DNS.

PKA, as well as two other methods (CERT and IPGP CERT), are described in this guide in much more detail.

One downside of all three methods is that GnuPG must be manually configured to use them, and PGP.com doesn't even support using DNS. Meanwhile, practically all versions of PGP and GnuPG can use keyservers.

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When i publish a key( which contains private+public) , does it also publish a private ??? it must not.... – Royi Namir Dec 23 '12 at 11:33
@RoyiNamir: No. First, the gpg and PGP programs only send the public part of your key. Second, the keyservers themselves remove all private data before publishing received keys. – grawity Dec 23 '12 at 14:11
fewww.....thanks :-) – Royi Namir Dec 23 '12 at 14:31
do you know if in the pgp file , the original filename is stored ? ( for example john encrpyt 1.txt and send it to me as 1.pgp..... can I know - when decrypt - what was the original filename ? ) – Royi Namir Dec 23 '12 at 14:32
@RoyiNamir: superuser.com/questions/ask and yes, it is. (Except when it's not.) – grawity Dec 23 '12 at 18:05
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