[8128] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bram Cohen)
Sun Nov 26 16:43:56 2000
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 13:37:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Bram Cohen <bram@gawth.com>
To: John Kelsey <kelsey.j@ix.netcom.com>
Cc: Lynn.Wheeler@firstdata.com, obfuscation@beta.freedom.net,
cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-Reply-To: <4.1.20001123030759.0094bf00@pop.ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0011261320430.27261-100000@ultra.gawth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, John Kelsey wrote:
> At 04:47 PM 11/22/00 -0800, Bram Cohen wrote:
>
> >Once again, the solution to the problems of offline
> >operation appears to be online operation.
>
> And the annoying thing about this is that once we go to
> needing an online trusted third party to allow us to have
> secure communications, we may as well chuck the public key
> stuff and just use symmetric ciphers and the key exchange
> protocols worked out ten or fifteen years ago.
That isn't completely true - using public key protocols involves many
fewer messages total, and allows for much more decentralized data access -
we're using it for Mojo Nation for precisely those reasons, and it's made
a fundamental difference in scalability.
It isn't quite as revolutionary as one might expect though.
PKI for contracts and treaties is also largely overhyped - those have long
depended on agreements being widely distributed/notarized/timestamped for
their reliability, and the law of contracts is all based on oral
agreements. PKI just contributes a bit more evidence (and, apparently, not
a crucial part) and making it be a 'legally binding signature' mostly has
to do with the technical question of when an agreement goes from being
negotiated to legally binding. Sending a piece of mail saying 'ok' can
work just as well.
-Bram Cohen
