Dead Letters to Alice - Reachability of E-Mail Addresses in the PGP Web of Trust
This addresses the problem of email address decay in the PGP web of trust for users and researchers, but it is incremental as it reports findings without introducing new methods.
The study tested the vitality of four million email addresses in the PGP web of trust over 25 years, finding that 40% were unreachable and 46.77% of reachable mailboxes were operated by three organizations.
Over the last 25 years four million e-mail addresses have accumulated in the PGP web of trust. In a study each of them was tested for vitality with the result of 40% being unreachable. Of the mailboxes proven to be reachable, 46.77% turn out to be operated by one of three organizations. In this article, the authors share their results and challenges during the study.