Strengthening a curated web of trust in a geographically distributed project

In this article the authors present a trust management scheme, derived from the horizontal and almost anarchic web of trust model, but following a curatorship step that allows it to become a centerpiece for authentication in Debian, one of the largest and longest lived free software projects and producer of the eponymous GNU/Linux software distribution. This is done by analyzing the experience gained through a large-scale key migration process that spanned five years and nearly 100% of the originally existing keys, carried out attempting to minimize loss of keyring connectivity and strength, while keeping up to date with the best current security practices.