the limits of crypto and authentication

[Adam Shostack]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 02:48:02PM -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
| At 09:29 PM 7/9/2005, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
| >The Blue Card, so far as I can tell, was poorly thought out beyond its
| >marketing potential. I knew some folks at Amex involved in the
| >development of the system, and I did not get the impression they had
| >much of a coherent idea of what the technologies would be used for
| >other than creating marketing buzz.
| 
| On the other hand, only a short time before that,
| Apple's iMac created a whole marketing revolution
| and set of spinoff products and revitalized the company
| by coming out with a semi-transparent blue-green case
| that effectively packaged the Reality Distortion Field,
| and they were able to maintain the effect over several years
| by the radical introduction of several other semi-transparent colors.
| 
| It'd be nice if good crypto and authentication methods
| could create a market for improved products,
| but hey, if blue-green translucent dancing pigs gets customers,
| the marketing people have done _their_ job.

In light of the ID theft drumbeat, companies that don't require your
SSN have a marketable edge.  I'm waiting for some to use it.

Adam

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