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When putting ultimate trust on a key, you're defining it as your own one.

Trust enables a valid key to be considered when calculating validity of other keys. For being valid, you need to have a trust path to this key, which is realized by signing it (or have path of signatures from key to key to it, all being trusted).

This is rather confusing in the beginning, especially because the terms seem mixed up. I explained the web of trust in more details in this answer.I explained the web of trust in more details in this answer.

If you know who the key owner is and checked this, you could just sign the key (and maybe even send it to a keyserver). If you're not too sure, you could perform a local signature (which will never be uploaded/exported) using your own key. Both will make sure the key is valid, you do not need to trust it!

When putting ultimate trust on a key, you're defining it as your own one.

Trust enables a valid key to be considered when calculating validity of other keys. For being valid, you need to have a trust path to this key, which is realized by signing it (or have path of signatures from key to key to it, all being trusted).

This is rather confusing in the beginning, especially because the terms seem mixed up. I explained the web of trust in more details in this answer.

If you know who the key owner is and checked this, you could just sign the key (and maybe even send it to a keyserver). If you're not too sure, you could perform a local signature (which will never be uploaded/exported) using your own key. Both will make sure the key is valid, you do not need to trust it!

When putting ultimate trust on a key, you're defining it as your own one.

Trust enables a valid key to be considered when calculating validity of other keys. For being valid, you need to have a trust path to this key, which is realized by signing it (or have path of signatures from key to key to it, all being trusted).

This is rather confusing in the beginning, especially because the terms seem mixed up. I explained the web of trust in more details in this answer.

If you know who the key owner is and checked this, you could just sign the key (and maybe even send it to a keyserver). If you're not too sure, you could perform a local signature (which will never be uploaded/exported) using your own key. Both will make sure the key is valid, you do not need to trust it!

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Jens Erat
Jens Erat
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When putting ultimate trust on a key, you're defining it as your own one.

Trust enables a valid key to be considered when calculating validity of other keys. For being valid, you need to have a trust path to this key, which is realized by signing it (or have path of signatures from key to key to it, all being trusted).

This is rather confusing in the beginning, especially because the terms seem mixed up. I explained the web of trust in more details in this answer.

If you know who the key owner is and checked this, you could just sign the key (and maybe even send it to a keyserver). If you're not too sure, you could perform a local signature (which will never be uploaded/exported) using your own key. Both will make sure the key is valid, you do not need to trust it!