Insecurity of public key crypto #1 (reply to Mandl)

Perry E. Metzger pmetzger at lehman.com
Wed Mar 2 08:03:57 PST 1994



Eric Johnson says:
> I don't think "adjust[ing] on a case by case basis" is necessary.
> I was suggesting just the opposite.  It obviously isn't a security
> issue.  I believe it is more of a first principles issue; "Thou
> shall encrypt thy communications, lest thou draw attention to thy
> self, and the right be removed by thine opponents."

You miss the point, Eric. We are advocating that IN THE FUTURE all
communications should be encrypted. However, FOR THE MOMENT this is
often impractical. Cypherpunks write code in an effort to try to bring
this future closer. However, making our lives impossible right now
will delay that future.

I encrypt things whenever possible. Some people I communicate with
can't encrypt, so I adjust, on a case by case basis. Someday,
hopefully within the next year or two, things will be different.

Encrypting this list ever would be useless -- but fine if it would
be easy to do. Since it isn't easy or useful, it is a bad idea.

Perry






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