From: Hal <74076.1041@CompuServe.COM>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 11:04:58 PDT
To: CYPHERPUNKS <CYPHERPUNKS@TOAD.COM>
Subject: Mr. Squirrel?
Message-ID: <921010180751_74076.1041_DHJ61-1@CompuServe.COM>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Hi, I've just joined this list.

Interesting confusion about Mr. Squirrel.  That's one of the problems
with anonymity.  How do you know you're talking to the right person?

What you should do is to use a public key.  The pseudonym is not
really the name "Secret Squirrel"; anybody can use that.  The pseudonym
is the public key.  Any message signed by that particular key is from
that particular squirrel.  Any message you encrypt in Squirrel's public
key is readable only by him.  If Squirrel changes his key, he should
sign the message so you know it's really _that_ squirrel who's changing
his key (and not some other squirrel telling people to use a new key).

A pseudonym is a public key.

Hal

P.S. Here's my key, signed by PRZ:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.01

mQCNAiqsNkwAAAEEAMKWM52m5EWi0ocK4u1cC2PPyHT6tavk9PC3TB5XBYDegf3d
sldRpnjJj1r+aO08FFO+QLEI9wtBqvf1PPP5iLX7sD2uIVlJH14MPtyVtjm9ZKb8
JMtCW74045BgtHBC9yQ3V7vXNV5jM6dE2ocnH4AI/pBFrGLJPKgTA69YIUw3AAUR
tCZIYWwgRmlubmV5IDw3NDA3Ni4xMDQxQGNvbXB1c2VydmUuY29tPokAlQIFECqu
M1Tidd4O/2f3CwEByrUD/3uoV2y+Fuicrrd2oDawgOw9Ejcx6E+Ty9PVPqKvflLs
0zYyGfeFVSgBbTSDP3X91N3F68nydl9J9VA6QRCGelHM1cZRukCJ0AYbKYfpwUN0
xjEGHsDrd2gT5iWlB3vBZvi+6Ybs4rSq+gyZzVm1/+oRrMen32fz2r0CLgUtHok2
=fF6Z
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----