What is this?
Web Key Directory (WKD) is a standard to serve keys in a well known location at the email domain.
Similar like mozilla’s auto configure xml, but for public keys.
Why?
- Increased compatibility with encrypted email providers.
- Encrypt on first message (Autocrypt only starts encryption from the first answer onwards)
- Not a central key server (if set up correctly by the recipients provider)
Possible Problems
- mostly only for enthusiasts hosting their own mail server or for users using a mail provider that supports it.
- The client needs to do a web request to the recipients key server which could be used to grab the ip address, but it’s only when sending a message so on user action and not automatically so should be fine. A central key server does not have this problem but a few others instead (possibility to manipulate key, also grab IP address and even track which IP address asks for which public keys, centralised also means single point of failure and so on…).