public-key: the wrong model for email?

Major Variola (ret) mv at cdc.gov
Thu Sep 16 20:17:30 PDT 2004


At 10:28 PM 9/16/04 +0200, Hadmut Danisch wrote:
>Because PKC works for this Alice&Bob communication scheme. If you
>connect to a web server, then what you want to know, or what
>authentication means is: "Are you really www.somedomain.com?"
>That's the Alice&Bob model. SSL is good for that.

What makes you think verislime or other CAs are authenticating?
You can't sue them, they are 0wn3d by a State (and so can
issue false certs, just like States issue false meatspace IDs), etc.

>If I send you an encrypted e-mail, I do want that _you_ Ed Gerck,
>can read it only. That's still the Alice&Bob model. PGP and S/MIME
>are good for that.

What makes you think that EG is a physical entity, if you haven't met
him and learned to trust him through out of band channels?

>The sender of an e-mail does not need to pretend beeing a particular
>person or sender. Any identity of the 8 (10?) billion humans on earth
>will do it.

What makes you think that, given 1e10 humans, there are 1e10 identities?

Ie, why do you think there is a one-to-one mapping?

>PKC is good as long as the communication model is a closed and
>relatively small user group. A valid signature of an unknown sender
>has at least the meaning that the sender belongs to that user group.

PKC is only as good as the means by which you obtain the public key.
A server, a CA, are all worthless.

The emperor has no clothes, get used to it.





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