Description of problem: Accordingly Werner Koch (the author of gnupg), the software on the default _hkp_keyserver (hkp://pgp.mit.edu) is old and broken. He suggests to use more modern ones like sks.keyserver.penguin.de Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): rpm-4.4.1-2
THe key server used by rpm is configurable, there is clearly no way to choose a default that fits everyone's needs. Meanwhile, since 24 hours of a tight loop testing for error handling against pgp.mit.edu has caused my local ip addr to be black listed, I shall happily change the default in rpm-4.4.2 to sks.keyserver.penguin.de. What really needs to happen is for Red Hat and/or Fedora and/or other distros to start configuring the default key server for their vendor needs. rpm cannot possibly get a default right.