CDR: Re: Non-Repudiation in the Digital Environment

Greg Broiles gbroiles at netbox.com
Tue Oct 17 13:18:55 PDT 2000


At 09:08 AM 10/11/00 -0400, Arnold G. Reinhold wrote:

>My concern is that the vast majority of informed lay people, lawyers, 
>judges, legislators, etc. will hear "non-repudiation" and hear "absolute 
>proof."  If you doubt this, read the breathless articles written recently 
>about the new U.S. Electronic Signatures Act.

I think it would be more sensible to worry that lawyers and judges will 
hear "non-repudiation" and stop paying attention to anything else the 
speaker has to say about law or evidence, as the concept of 
"non-repudiation" as discussed by technologists is fundamentally 
incompatible with the rules of civil & criminal procedure, the 
Constitution, and the rules of evidence, at least in the United States.

If it were possible to reduce questions about facts to the results of math 
problems, we wouldn't need courts at all. That suggests two things to me - 
(a) that's a very, very difficult problem to solve, and we certainly won't 
solve it by handwaving away important questions like security of keying 
material, and (b) even if it were solved, it's very likely the established 
legal system would declare it unsolved in order to protect its continued 
existence.

--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles at netbox.com





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