crypto flaw in secure mail standards

Enzo Michelangeli em at who.net
Sun Jun 24 22:47:40 EDT 2001


----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Broiles" <gbroiles at well.com>
To: "Enzo Michelangeli" <em at em.no-ip.com>; <cryptography at wasabisystems.com>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 1:32 AM
Subject: Re: crypto flaw in secure mail standards

[...]
> The digital signature laws I've seen don't mention and don't support the
> notion of "non-repudiation", which seems to be an obsession among computer
> security people and a non-issue among legal people. The idea that
something
> is "non-repudiable" or unarguable or unavoidable is nonsense. I use it as
a
> clue detector - if someone talks about non-repudiation, they don't know
> much about US contract law.

I don't know about US contract law, but under Common Law repudiation _is_ an
issue, and that's why witnessing is required. Moreover, there are attempts
to change the legal implications of signing a document if this is done in an
electronic environment, shifting the onus of proof of the claim of forgery
to the (alleged) signatory. See e.g.
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_8/mccullagh/#m4 about the
controversial Article 13 of the UNCITRAL Model Law.

Enzo







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