From: Secret_Squirrel@Treehouse.ORG
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 22:38:36 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Nuts & Acorns
Message-ID: <9210040546.AA10254@atdt.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


To: Tom Jennings
 
>>
Doesn't this imply that the unencrypted message would have to travel
from the originator to the server? Or do you mean to send to X I'd
request X's public key from the server, then encrypt, etc?
<<
 
Not at all.  In its simplest form: We'd have a single
secure-IRC-server.  It would have its own public key, which ever
secure-IRC-client would know.  When I want to send a secure
broadcast msg, I type it, my client encrypts it with the public key of
the secure-IRC-server, and transmits it.  The server picks it up,
decrypts it in memory, then re-encrypts that original msg with the
public key of each paritxxx participant in the particular room I'm in.
So, if there are ten participants in the room, and I want all of them
to know something, but not anyone else who might be tapping ixxx wires
or catching packets somewhere in the ether, then I'd send a single
broadcast msg to the server; the server would end up sending ten
differently encrypted msgs -- one to each participant, encrypted with
each of the participants' public keys (which the secure-irc-server
would have to maintain; it would function as a key-server.)
 
To send a private msg across the secure-IRC, I'd indicate that it was
a "/msg", the recipeixxx recipient, and again, encrypt it with the
public key of the server.  The server would learn who the recipient
was, and rebroadcast my message to that person, in that person's
public key.
 
>>
I am considering becoming and "introducer" for parts of FidoNet. I
can't seem to get past the problems of how to assign reliability to
public keys I receive over an unsecured email channel to begin with.
No other method is practical.
<<
 
Huh?  I don't understand what you're pointing out.  If I send you my
public key -- even if I cc: dockmaster -- what does it matter that the
NSA knows my public key (unoless they want to send me msgs, too)?  The
key itself is inherantly secure.  Let your users decide on their
public keys and register those keys with your key server.  Not the
other way around.  Course, there's always the Kandinsky-Ogorov method
of key exchange.
 
To: St. Jude
 
>>
The bacteriophage virus replicates itself by injecting its own
information into an existing system. The more copies of the phage,
the worse for the bacteria etc etc. 
SO: in private, the planning, the designing, the coding...
for public distribution as widely as possible. If the technology is
intrinsically transformative, and if the process of distribution is
engaging, even exciting, the revolution is next tuesday.
<<
 
Providing the numbe r of cells you have access to and can anticipate
influencyxxx incxxx influencing is large enough, and it isn't.
 
Anyway, look, let's put our words into action.  What makes code
(programming, I mean) didxxx different from spoken language?  The fact
that you can communicate with a machine, and it will _act_ on what you
say, no matter what.  Theres beauty and there's magic in that.  (And
some of us have the same effect on people that we have on machines.
;-)) Instead of talking about all this, let's start doing it.  What
did I read the other day?  "Hackers go where Angels fear to tread"?
Let's have more ideas.  This hopping remailer is exciting.  So is
passive encryption of electronic communications.  When are we going
totart xxx to start effecting de facto standards here?  Once we start
encrypting everything, then what?  What do we do with this new tool?
Communication of any kind (especially encrypted communication)
presupposs that there are messages to be exchanged -- _ideas_!  More
ideas and less chatter.
 
How can we have a revolution if we don't even know what we're trying
to bring about?  Maybe I was out of the loop.  Maybe I was attending
an Army/Navy game that day, but I don't know what we're trying to do
here, exactly.  What is this "revolution"?  
 
-- $33kr1t $kwurl.
    K.R.A.P.  (K-Rad. A.SCII P.Ossee)