Authenticating Meat [was Re: Thanks for the living hell]
At 06:01 PM 4/25/03 -0400, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
Major Variola (ret) wrote:
At 02:20 PM 4/25/03 -0400, someone claiming to be Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
(-: The sig is valid for the key at http://fexl.com/keys/patrick.txt)
I didn't doubt that it was. However, my caveat remains true, and you haven't proved anything additional. An entity claiming that name, and claiming to be not-a-bot, and apparently controlling the DNS entry at the server I checked today for fexl.com today, has signed a message. Yep, I believe [1] that. I'm not picking on you. Neither am I trying to be a dick; skeptical socratics sometimes appear so. Check the archives for extended discussion as to what, exactly, signing proves. On the other hand, *whatever* entity has been signing these messages collects the reputations associated with them *more reliably*[1] than merely posting under your name. Maybe you're a 14 year old girl pretending to be an FBI agent pretending to be a cryptographer :-) Making the leap from key-holder to meatspace entity is unsound unless something in meatspace demonstrates it. You're all bits from here. ----- [1] Note that these beliefs are moderated by unfounded trust in PGP implem & algs, that you've protected your private key, etc. But we'll grant that for now. ----- "With a laser printer, you can get away with anything" --a Quark-using confederate in the late 80s, referring to the widespread trust of finely printed documents at the time
At 3:54 PM -0700 4/25/03, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Making the leap from key-holder to meatspace entity is unsound unless something in meatspace demonstrates it. You're all bits from here.
The definitive fictional treatment is Vernor Vinge's, "True Names". BTW - Is the re-issue of this short story available? Cheers - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Due process for all | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@pwpconsult.com | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
At 12:32 PM 04/26/2003 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote:
At 3:54 PM -0700 4/25/03, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Making the leap from key-holder to meatspace entity is unsound unless something in meatspace demonstrates it. You're all bits from here.
The definitive fictional treatment is Vernor Vinge's, "True Names".
BTW - Is the re-issue of this short story available?
http://www.powells.com/subsection/ScienceFictionandFantasyV.html has Vinge books, including ISBN 0-312-86207-5, published by Tor, which is the collection with Vinge's novel and articles by a number of people including Tim, Chip Morningstar / Randy Farmer, RMS, and others. The original is on the net in several places - http://home.earthlink.net/~whitestones/truename/truename.html in mostly-pure-ASCII HTML with illustrations from one of the editions of the book. Back when cypherpunks were lamenting the fact that the book was out of print, and that publisher copyright issues were preventing reprints, I found a copy of that edition in a used bookstore and lent it to a heavyset bearded guy who never returned the hard copy. I have no idea if the events are related, though I've since found a copy of the original paperback which had different cover art... (:-) http://members.tripod.com/erythrina/ has interesting original artwork.
participants (3)
-
Bill Frantz -
Bill Stewart -
Major Variola (ret)