[Sks-devel] Legalese for mismatched expectations
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: RIPEMD160 The world is changing, more people are trying out security technologies, and if you think many people using PGP before didn't know what they were doing, I think the next couple of years will drive a few more PGP folks to drink. One issue that arises is that as the userbase of a product shifts, and their expectations of what the product provides shift, assumptions which were fine before might stop being fine afterwards. A lot of people now want to have security, for free, with no understanding, and have it somehow be PRISM-proof. As someone in the USA who runs a PGP keyserver for the general public, I need to take reasonable steps to make sure that I convey clearly what a keyserver does or does not provide for the people using it. As a first step, earlier I updated the text on http://sks.spodhuis.org/ with a new third paragraph, in HTML strong, pointing out some security implications. I probably need to find time to mess with fonts to not have my CSS tell folks to use a font where strong isn't very strong. Here's what I came up with: Note: this service is provided free, to the public, in the hopes that it might prove useful. No warranty is provided, nor any offer of continuing service or access. By using this service, you MUST understand that presence of data in the keyserver (pools) in no way connotes trust. Anyone can generate a key, with any name or email address, and upload it. All security and trust comes from evaluating security at the “object level”, via PGP Web-Of-Trust signatures. This keyserver makes it possible to retrieve keys, looking them up via various indices, but the collection of keys in this public pool is KNOWN to contain malicious and fraudulent keys. It is the common expectation of server operators that users understand this and use software which, like all known common OpenPGP implementations, evaluates trust accordingly. This expectation is so common that it is not normally explicitly stated. Perhaps others can improve upon this. - -Phil -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iEYEAREDAAYFAlIhMW4ACgkQQDBDFTkDY38rWgCcDVJ7i/wCvJyoX9DgoVp6utFA A7MAn26C5K2TYNjs3oR/texosvG7kQm0 =IpKy -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Sks-devel mailing list Sks-devel@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/sks-devel
Re: [Sks-devel] Legalese for mismatched expectations
On Aug 30, 2013, at 7:57 PM, Phil Pennock sks-devel-p...@spodhuis.org wrote: Perhaps others can improve upon this. Too many words, keep it KISS in plain speak. Say what you just said in, say, 3 sentences using no more than 5 commas. JMHO 73 de Jeff ___ Sks-devel mailing list Sks-devel@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/sks-devel
Re: [Sks-devel] Legalese for mismatched expectations
On Fri, 2013-08-30 at 20:46 -0400, Jeffrey Johnson wrote: Too many words, keep it KISS in plain speak. Agreed... First, it's not our job to educate people with respect to cryptography/security in general... we should only focus on the keyserver related issues, and as such we should IMHO rather try, to educate users that the whole keyserver network can never really protect from MiM downgrading and/or blocking attacks. But even that should be rather educated by the OpenPGP implementations. A simple note as in the BSD license, that the service is provided as is, might make sense, though. Cheers, Chris. smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature ___ Sks-devel mailing list Sks-devel@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/sks-devel
Re: [Sks-devel] Legalese for mismatched expectations
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: RIPEMD160 On 2013-08-31 at 02:57 +0200, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote: On Fri, 2013-08-30 at 20:46 -0400, Jeffrey Johnson wrote: Too many words, keep it KISS in plain speak. Agreed... If I were smart enough to include the needed information in fewer words, it would use fewer words. Explicit suggestions appreciated, but needs to be shorter is kind of obviously true. First, it's not our job to educate people with respect to cryptography/security in general... It might not be our job, but in the jurisdiction I live in, there are nasty concepts like attractive nuisance, where you can be minding your own business, avoiding putting up barriers, and when someone else gets in trouble through their own mistakes, you get in trouble for having a garden without secure fences. That's just the most obvious analogy; in the USA, there are all sorts of nasty ways that providing a public service to others can leave you legally exposed to the consequences of someone's ignorance. When experts say surely nobody could blame us, judges say it's your fault. Especially if the experts can be painted as remote robots and it's an election season (since many judges are elected too). So, I am absolutely going to have warning text, even if it's not my job to take responsibility for the ignorance of others. - -Phil -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iEYEAREDAAYFAlIheiQACgkQQDBDFTkDY3/DhwCfUQO3TkOjeDGZjWyic8k8KmvH GRIAn2KHXiTAZzG+PghpwjOZxCJtwDac =atH9 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Sks-devel mailing list Sks-devel@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/sks-devel
