Re: why bother signing? (was Re: What email encryption is actually in use?)

2002-10-13 Thread Julian Assange

 There have been episodes of spoofing on this list.  If client
 side encryption just worked, and if what is considerably more
 difficult, checking the signatures just worked, there would
 be no bother, hence it would be rational to sign

Not just work but opt out is what you are looking for. If there
are n posters to the list and m people signing, then their are only
n-m spoof targets. As m approaches n, the number of forgeries
rapidly approaches zero as there is no one left worth spoofing who
can be spoofed. But as each individuals chance of being spoofed
approaches zero, the benefit gained by signing also approaches
zero. Consequently unless there are additional costs to non-signing
above and beyond spoof protection there will always be a substantial
number of unsigned messages.

--
 Julian Assange|If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people
   |together to collect wood or assign them tasks and
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |work, but rather teach them to long for the endless
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Saint Exupery




Re: why bother signing? (was Re: What email encryption is actually in use?)

2002-10-05 Thread Ben Laurie

Ben Laurie wrote:
 On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 01:07:50PM -0700, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
 
At 04:45 PM 10/3/02 -0700, James A. Donald wrote:

   --
James A. Donald wrote:

If we had client side encryption that just works we would
be seeing a few more signed messages on this list,

Ben Laurie wrote:

Why would I want to sign a message to this list?

Then all the people who read this list, were they to receive a
communication from you, they would know it was the same Ben
Laurie who posts to this list.

But Ben is not spoofed here!  
 
 
 
 He is now.
 
 
 Cheers,
 
 Ben.

I will confirm this as a (detectable) spoof :-)

Cheers,

Ben.

-- 
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html   http://www.thebunker.net/

There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit. - Robert Woodruff