Transitive trust and MLM

[Rich Graves]

On Mon, 13 May 1996 eli+ at GS160.SP.CS.CMU.EDU wrote:

> EALLENSMITH at ocelot.Rutgers.EDU writes:
> > Now, there's the question of whether you _need_ to be linked to everyone - 
> > [...] I see nothing wrong (and am in favor of) separation of the
> > elite from the masses.
> 
> Gee, let me guess which group you're in... I'll go with "people I want
> to talk to" versus "people I don't want to talk to", thanks.

That sounds sincere coming from someone who calls himself "eli+" :-)
 
> It's true that you don't need to talk to everybody.  The problem is
> that I might want to talk to people whom I don't know personally, but
> know by reputation, or by function ("DEA Rat Hotline" -- well, maybe
> not).

Yes, that is a problem. That problem is one of the reasons that public key
encryption was invented, actually.

The way to know whether an untrusted key really belongs to someone is to
wait for the response. Which means don't spill all the beans at once.

-rich