Moving beyond "Reputation"--the Market View of Reality

[georgemw at speakeasy.net]

On 30 Nov 2001, at 13:34, Sunder wrote:

> Simple.  Once the buyer has the keys she issues an email saying "I'm
> changing my keys, here's the new public key" and signs it with the old key
> - thus proving that the nym's original message was valid, thus
> invalidating the old one.  Duh!
> 
> 
Any sort of protocol along these lines will only be successful if 
people are willing to accept the buying and selling of keys
along with associated reputations as valid.  I don't
think people will.

A message along the lines of "I've discovered my key has
been compromised, so I'm changing it, but I'm signing it with
the old (admittedly compromised) key" should not be
believed.  The message can as easily come from the compromisor 
as compromisee, more easily in fact, since
a nym thief will doubtless know he's stolen a nym before
the victim realizes it.  The proper response to such a message 
would be to indeed view the old key as compromised, but
to put no confidence in the "new key" unless it can be verified
via an inpendent channel.  For a pure pseudonym (not in
any way attached to any known physical entity) I'm not sure there
is an indendent channel.

George

George