[Cryptography] Business opportunities in crypto

[Kent Borg]

On 4/14/21 12:37 AM, Christian Huitema wrote:
> Anonymous rendezvous is a vexing problem.

When you put it that way, it sounds pretty impossible.


To rendezvous anonymously, with the intended target and not some random 
bloke, seems there needs to be some out-of-band agreement as to this 
identity and expectation. (In blind-date terms: "Meet me in front of 
City Hall at 2. I'll be carrying a copy of Applied Cryptography, first 
edition. Ask me 'Can you spare a nonce?'".)

In wifi terms it sounds like a temporary SSID that is communicated 
out-of-band. By a value said out loud (maybe a QR code to get too 
fancy). Minimal vexation.


If the problem is repeated anonymous rendezvous (like having a habit of 
going to deep-cover costume balls and still wanting to find a favorite 
squeeze), then it still sounds like an out-of-band agreement, but one 
that can be recycled in a way predictable to the other, ball after ball. 
I can imagine some approaches here…

But at this point I want to know more about the practical problem being 
solved. I mean, I don't think people do ad-hoc networks much at all. Why 
are they interested in this case, why can't one say a randomly generated 
SSID, and what other constraints are they under? Plenty of vexation in 
these parts.


-kb, the Kent who has always found Linux ad-hoc wireless networking 
setup software badly crafted and cumbersome; something that can't be 
setup and made to work by a normal person.