At 2:49 AM 1/25/96, Alan Olsen wrote:
This is a problem with the web of trust in general. It is known as "Guilt by Association".
Person X commits treasonable act A. All of the persons who are signed on to his key could be considered to be co-conspirators. The same applies to nyms. The difficulty with prosecuting nyms is finding the link to the real world individual. Anyone associated with him/her/it will be considered to be guilty by reason of key signage or a way of determining who the real person is... .... I guess we are stuck with the "Web of Guilt"...
Although I disagree with many things the U.S. government has declared unlawful, and think we are on the wrong track in many ways, I don't see any evidence for a "web of guilt." I could have signed the keys of Timothy McVeigh, O.J. Simpson, and Hilary Clinton, and yet this would not cause any prosecutor to indict me, per se. (Brian Davis, do you disagree?) Obviously if one of these persons I was known to have associated with, to the point of signing their keys, were under investigation, then some detectives might follow up some leads to find out who I was. This is ordinary detective work, not guilt by association. Key-signing is overrated, in my view. It is just an affidavit from someone that they think a person is related to a key. I've signed a few keys (not many, and don't ask me to!), and I've never once asked for any form of state-sanctioned ID. --Tim May Boycott espionage-enabled software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."