At 12:38 PM 12/11/96 -0800, "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> wrote:
Consider a "race credential" offered by some entity. .. (Why some groups might want this is left as an exercise for the reader. Perhaps a less-inflammatory example (to some of the sensitive amongst you) might be that some women want to interact in "women only" forums--a clear case of discrimination, no?--and may want a "gender bit" avaiable to display as a credential.)
I've already tried to subscribe to a forum (at the liberal Utne reader!) where I was rejected because they currently had more subscribers who identified themselves as "male" than as "female", and they wanted to maintain a balance. And certainly "US Citizens Only" sites are common - nationalism is just as ugly and stupid as racism, and far more likely to be enforced with ID requirements; I've heard that in less civilized parts of the world you're actually required to carry government-issued ID cards to walk down the street or fly on airplanes. Another problem is that "nationalist credentials" made hide other data, such as a race bit, a Jewish bit, a don't-ask-out-loud-don't-tell bit, a suspected-Commie bit, a check-FBI-files-first bit, etc. The subliminal channels in DSS are the best known method for doing this, but it's probably possible to do something similar even using blind signatures, especially if there are multiple keys or timestamp fields. For example, they could use different signature keys that are supposedly just "signed at the New York/LA/Langley/Holtsville/SF/DC office" or "signed 4/1/97 4:20pm". # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)