CDR: Re: Non-Repudiation in the Digital Environment (was Re: First Monday August 2000)

[Arnold G. Reinhold]

At 11:21 AM -0700 10/17/2000, Ed Gerck wrote:
>"Arnold G. Reinhold" wrote:
>
>> To the extent we agree here, I would urge you to help insure that
>> this message is crystal clear in all specs and documents whose
>> content you can influence. And don't rely on which dictionary's
>> definition of "protect" is correct.
>
>Arnold,
>
>Yes. However, we live now in a post-modern society, where the emphasis
>is on local discourse and it is accepted that there are many truths and
>many ways of knowing.  The cat is out of the bag and we need IMO to learn
>to cope with diversity rather than try to iron it out.  Of course, there are
>many dictionaries and many languages and computer technology has not
>solved this problem -- in the contrary, we have maybe dozens of "computer
>languages" being born every year and a handful of them actually being
>used.
>
>So, if we look to the real world, what do we see? Do we see a 
>uniform law rule,
>a uniform government and a uniform language? No, we see multiple 
>relationships,
>multiple actors, heavy overload, intersubjective contexts.

The legal and societal significance of this technology is open to 
debate, and will be decided differently in different places, based on 
local values, economic interests and raw political power.  All I am 
asking is that the debate be informed by accurate statements of what 
this stuff can and cannot do.

>As Tony Bartoletti wrote, apologies for what seems a rant, but the "solid
>mathematical foundations" underlying digital signatures, "Qualified 
>Certificates",
>unmistakable IDs, biometrics and so forth create in me a degree of "psychic
>and social backlash" as well.

As well it should. There is a big difference between "can we do it?" 
and "should we do it?"

One other point, and let me shift to upper case for this one:  THERE 
ARE NO "SOLID MATHEMATICAL FOUNDATIONS" FOR ANY OF THIS STUFF!!!!! 
THE DIFFICULTY OF BREAKING PUBLIC KEY SYSTEMS HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN 
MATHEMATICALLY.  It is all hypothesis and empirical argument. A lone 
mathematician working in his attic could come up with an algorithm 
that would blow some or all of the existing systems out of the water. 
Who get to cover that financial risk?

>
>We create these instruments in the hope of ascertaining better measures
>of the constancy of authentication and identities.  The central question that
>comes to mind is "to what degree we are artificially creating the constancy we
>intend these instruments to measure."

Well said.



Arnold Reinhold