The Market for Crypto--A Curmudgeon's View (fwd)

[Jonathon Fletcher]

On Tue, 29 Nov 1994, Sandy Sandfort wrote:

[ ... stuff r'moved ... ]

> 
> Personally, I'm against mandatory digitally signatures as a
> rerequisite for posting to Cypherpunks.  On the other hand, I
> like the idea of having the list software automatic verify
> digital signatures.  This is a valuable service I'm usually too
> lazy to perform for myself.
> 
> Here's my suggestion.  Eric should unilaterally impose his first
> step, i.e., all unsigned messages and messages with spoofed
> signatures will henceforth be flagged as such.  Let's see what
> effect, if any, that has on the way people post their messages.
> After the protocol has been in effect for some time, we can
> re-open the topic for further discussion.
> 

This is a good idea - certainly a nice way to emphasize (sp) signing 
posts. Having majordomo verify signatures automatically and add message 
content if either (as sandy suggests) signature is missing or bad.

One question would be whether majordomo should add content upon 
verification of a signature, or upon failure to verify a signature (missing 
or bad). Depends on which would have most 'positive' appearance, and 
(more importantly) would generate least extra volume in the long term. 
Personally I think that flagging the messages with bad or missing 
signatures is a better idea - as more people sign articles on the list 
there will be less flagging volume sent out by md.

Nice idea Sandy.

... only snag is that md has to be modified again. Has Eric the time and 
desire to fit this in. I can't help with the perl - still not grokked it 
properly.

-Jon

--
  Jonathon Fletcher
  j.fletcher at stirling.ac.uk

" .. all opinions expressed or implied are my own and not necessarily 
  those of my employer or any other party ... "