CDR: Re: Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...

[Jim Choate]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

> At 12:10 PM -0500 on 11/20/00, Arnold G. Reinhold wrote:
>  
> > If CAs
> > included a financial guarantee of whatever it is they are asserting
> > when they issue a certificate, then all these problems would go away.
> 
> Right.

Bonding would not fix this problem. It only moves the question of identity
and responsibility to the bonding agency. You've still solved nothing.
 
> Like Ellison (and Metzger :-)) have said for years now, the only
> "assertions" worth making are financial ones. "Identity", biometric/meat,
> or otherwise, is only a proxy for asset protection anyway.

Bullshit. Identity is a asset as much as a digital balance in my banks
computer. This is a false distinction.
 
> I claim you can do this on the net without the current mystification of
> identity that exists in the financial system, using bearer asset
> cryptography, among other things, but that's another discussion altogether.

But how do you certify the bearer's identity without a CA or reverting to
something along the lines of the PGP web-of-trust? Who writes and
certifies the bearer algorithms?

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