Failure of PKI in messaging

[Nicolas Williams]

On Thu, Feb 15, 2007 at 11:36:35AM -0500, Victor Duchovni wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 15, 2007 at 10:10:21AM -0500, Leichter, Jerry wrote:
> > Meanwhile, the next generation of users is growing up on the immediacy
> > of IM and text messaging.  Mail is ... so 20th century.
> 
> Well, you certainly don't want to use email when coordinating a place to
> meet in the next 10-15 minutes, while on the move with a cell phone, or
> other near-real-time social activity so important to the next generation
> while they are still the "next" generation.

As mobile devices improve in compute/memory/display/input capabilities
the distinction between texting/IM/e-mail will get blurred, and at the
same time mobiles will become more and more tempting vehicle for
securing transactions.

E.g., I use the GMail J2ME app on my cell phone and it's almost as good
as SMS in some ways and better in others (plus I forward some e-mails to
SMS so that this app need not be running all the time).  I can even pay
via paypal using my phone, supposedly -- I've not tried it.

Just as we laugh when we recall 1980s cell phones (ha!) the next
generation will laugh at the best of our current crop of mobile devices,
never mind the more basic ones.

Nico
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