Fwd: [IP] A Simpler, More Personal Key to Protect Online Messages

Amir Herzberg amir at herzberg.name
Tue Jul 8 09:49:22 EDT 2003


At 18:31 07/07/2003 -0400, Tim Dierks wrote:
...
>So, it all boils down to a system that's not dissimilar to a traditional 
>CA-based public key system. In order for you to participate, you go to the 
>trusted third party, they verify that you own the e-mail address you're 
>claiming to possess (with whatever level of verification they insist 
>upon), and if you do, they generate your secret key for you and send it to 
>you. You can now decrypt messages which other people encrypt with that 
>public key.
>
>I don't think it's an interesting solution. I don't see any interesting 
>application that's possible with this system which you couldn't do with 
>existing public-key cryptography: for example, I could write a protocol & 
>software where you could request a public key

...

Tim: wonderful concise summary and I couldn't agree more. Thanks for taking 
the time to explain so nicely why this kind of systems, while cute, are not 
really helping applied cryptography (IMHO).

Best regards...

Amir Herzberg
http://amir.herzberg.name


---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com



More information about the cryptography mailing list