From: Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 95 17:29:31 PDT
To: Jeff Weinstein <jsw@netscape.com>
Subject: Strong authentication for Netscape distributions
In-Reply-To: <9510031403.ZM151@tofuhut>
Message-ID: <9510040026.AA18012@cfdevx1.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

    From: Jeff Weinstein <jsw@netscape.com>
    Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 14:03:28 -0700
    Subject: Re: Netscape finally issuing md5sums/pgp signed binaries ? (was Re: NetScape's dependence upon RSA down for the count!) 

    . . .

      Yes, I get the idea about spewing the signed hashes everywhere.  The
    problem I have is with the user of PGP.  That will help cypherpunks,
    but does absolutely nothing for most of our millions of users, who
    have no idea what PGP is.  Perhaps its enough to assume that if anyone
    is tampering with the distribution, some cypherpunk will stumble across
    it...

I suspect that most of these millions don't know about md5 or much of
anything in the way of strong authentication.  However, if you provide
any sure-fire mechanism by which someone could detect that the
distribution has been tampered with, it would be an improvement over
not having any.  If someone does happen to notice tampering and send
mail to cypherpunks about it, I'd guess that there's a good chance it
would be reported in major publications shortly thereafter.

You might want to indirect through BETSI . . . .

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--
Rick Busdiecker                        Please do not send electronic junk mail!
 net: rfb@lehman.com or rfb@cmu.edu    PGP Public Key: 0xDBD9994D
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A `hacker' is one who writes code.  Breaking into systems is `cracking'.