[8078] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Schneier: Why Digital Signatures are not Signatures (was Re:
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bram Cohen)
Sat Nov 18 14:24:18 2000
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 10:58:17 -0800 (PST)
From: Bram Cohen <bram@gawth.com>
To: John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <3A147F6E.B74BBCF@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0011171057020.13139-100000@ultra.gawth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, John David Galt wrote:
> As the US banking system (and especially the bank clearinghouses controlled
> by the Federal Reserve system) has gone electronic, all the banks I know of
> have stopped bothering to verify the signatures on checks, and similarly
> those on credit- and debit-card drafts. Getting them to start using digital
> signatures would be a big improvement over the current wide-open situation.
True, although a simpler (albeit less secure) measure would be to increase
the length of the tracking number so that it's unguessable (it may already
be that way - if so, never mind.)
-Bram Cohen
