Theft Attempt or LEO Sting?

Jim Choate ravage at einstein.ssz.com
Sat Jun 15 05:20:24 PDT 2002



On Sat, 15 Jun 2002, Morlock Elloi wrote:

> Ultimately it's impossible to have security where one side is a machine
> handling many live customers. Whatever central machine does can be emulated or
> simulated in human's eyes - by subverting the machine itself, the transport
> mechanism or the client machine/software. This is the ultimate limit of
> squeezing out middlemen (aka e-commerce.)

You completely overlook distributed networks where there isn't a central
server. That's the next wave. As to squeezing out middlemen, your argument
actually argues for their elimination, they're a security/subversion point
that isn't under control of either of the 'real' parties in the
transaction.

No, 'middle man' is a consequence of technology, or the lack of it. As the
technology matures you'll see the market reduce to something more
'theoretical' in nature; the two parties to each transaction and a neutral
third party to resolve disputes.

> The security is proportional to wetware cycles burned per transaction.

Not even close. Consider cracking 802.11b for example. The trick to crack
it isn't to focus on one transaction but to grab several million. Security
isn't this simple to define.


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