[Cryptography] The business of web hosting, was Commercial PKI as dog poop

[Jerry Leichter]

> [W]hen I point my browser at my local bank's web site, I am actually talking to a service bureau called Jack Henry Associates which many banks use. I don't know
> whether they physically host their own servers or further subcontract
> to Amazon or Microsoft or some other cloud provider but I don't care.
> Regardless of who controls the machine, I am confident that there are
> adequate business controls so that when I do a remote deposit and
> upload a picture of a check, the money will end up in my account at my
> bank, the same as if I'd walked down to the branch and deposited it in
> person.

And of course in some sense there's nothing new here:  Your bank may well lease the property at which your local branch is located.  And it's not as if you gave your check to "the bank":  You gave it to some (likely not much above minimum wage) teller employed by the bank as their agent and you had to trust that they deposited the funds in your account, not their own.  And the bank cleared the check through a clearing system whose ownership is extremely complex - and ultimately kept all the information about your balance - it's not as if they are keeping "money" in the vault in your name - recorded on systems it may well not actually own.

The world was much simpler back when all property was physical and locally owned and directly controlled.  Of course, though it may have been closer, that world probably hasn't existed through all of recorded history.  Agency is hardly a 21st century - or even a 17th century - novelty.
                                                        -- Jerry