CDR: Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...

[Ben Laurie]

Bram Cohen wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 obfuscation at beta.freedom.net wrote:
> 
> > Bram Cohen writes:
> > > In the vast majority of cases, preventing man in the middle attacks is a
> > > waste of time.
> >
> > In the sense that, in the vast majority of communications, there is no
> > man in the middle attack being mounted?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > Couldn't the same thing be said of cryptography, since in the vast
> > majority of cases there is no eavesdropping?
> 
> Yes, but it's a less vast majority than the ones for which man in the
> middle is happening.
> 
> > The point in both cases is that if you construct a protocol which has
> > weaknesses, eventually people may begin to exploit them.
> 
> And if you build a protocol which is a pain to use, noone will use it.

What, like SSL, for example?

Cheers,

Ben.

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