What is the point of a public key fingerprint?

Re:What is the point of a public key fingerprint? by renonce on Sunday December 17, 2023 @12:42AM (#38670602)

If I randomly check 4 digits sampled uniformly across all positions you won’t have a higher chance than 1/16 to convince me unless you match 128 digits

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Re:What is the point of a public key fingerprint? by Retr0id on Sunday December 17, 2023 @01:03AM (#38670698)

1/16 is several orders of magnitude too high for comfort. There are only 64 hex digits total, so I'm not sure where 128 comes from?

If you meant bits, the two example hashes I gave already match 184 out of 256 total bits.

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Re:What is the point of a public key fingerprint? by lxgr on Sunday December 17, 2023 @01:04AM (#38670706)

Exactly. A 1 in 16 chance to send money to a scammer instead of the intended party is unacceptably high, for example.

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