CDR: Re: identity-as-bits vs. identity-as-meat

[R. A. Hettinga]

...which brings us to

http://www.acs.ohio-state.edu/units/law/swire1/pscrypto.htm

Which is, mostly, based on Professor Peter Swire's opinion on the
cypherpunk "identity is bits" paradigm delivered at FC97, though apparently
edited some since then.

Not that I agree with him, at all, actually, but there are *lots* of twisty
bits in there to wrestle with.

Cheers,
RAH



At 11:14 AM -0800 on 11/16/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:


> According to current law in all nations (as far as I know),
> identity is meat.  One person has one identity, and the
> identity is persistent and lifelong.  All law is based on
> this assumption.
>
> Emerging in this forum and elsewhere is a different assumption,
> which is that identity is bits.  If an entity has Alice's key,
> then that entity is Alice.  Alice's person may be a different
> person this time, but only if Alice's last person was stupid or
> careless. And in this case Alice is probably better off with
> a different person anyway.  Your dealings with Alice are still
> bound by the same guarantees of trust that you've always had
> with Alice: the laws of mathematics and the steps of the protocols.
> Alice's reputation and interests are likely to have changed with
> the change in person, but that's okay.

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