Bill Steward wrote:
The purpose of signing keys, in my opinion, is to verify that, if you're using a given key to talk to a given person or entity, does that key really belong to that entity, or is it a key the KGB/NSA/Mafia/Wiretaps-R-Us substituted for the real key. You're not necessarily claiming that the name on the key is the person's Government-Approved True Name, though government ID is one way you could help verify that the person you meet at a conference claiming to be "Tim May" is the real "Tim May" you've been sending
Yes, it's important people realize this. For example, I only recently met the "meat-entity Bill Stewart" when he moved to the Bay Area a month or two ago...I previously knew this entity as the "Net-entity Bill Stewart" and I didn't really care what his physical ID and meat personna was, only that every time I dealt with "him" I was in fact reaching the same entity. (We didn't user public keys, so far as I recall, but we _could_ have.)
The government already supports government-approved fictional people with government-approved names - corporations.
More than this, the government has over 30,000 people in the Witness Security Program (popularly known as the Witness Protection Program): turncoats, Mafia informants, and other criminals. The credit card companies and major credit reporting agencies (TRQ, Equifax, etc.) apparently have a working arrangement with the relevant agencies to not flag "data base ghosts" that clearly belong to these legend-equipped phony IDs. Interestingly, this probably explains a lot about the collusion between credit card companies and the government....and perhaps why "digital cash" VISA cards have not appeared, even though they are feasible. Also note the intriguing possibility that offshore/cyberspatial credit reporting agencies could identify these "data base ghosts" and reveal them publically. We could see several thousand of them be killed withing days by their vengeful ex-partners, while the others are frantically relocated. Crypto anarchy will shake so many things up! (I have a lot more info on WitSec, on FinCEN, and on other secretive government programs.) --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.