From: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@Athena.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 93 19:59:15 PST
To: pmetzger@shearson.com
Subject: Re: Piercing anonymitiy and censorship
In-Reply-To: <9303030105.AA21682@maggie.shearson.com>
Message-ID: <9303030357.AA14312@SOS>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


The problem with trying to put RSA signed keys into Usenet is that it is
simply not that simple.  People aren't going to adopt the software
overnight; it will take literally years before they adopt the software.

In an earlier message, you said:

   Well, the folks running B News and C News will have to live without
   the public key extensions, and it will be their fault. The people with
   the public key extensions will have the benefits. 

That's just not true, and your proposed solution demonstrates that
nicely.  Until the majority of the poeple are posting signed messages,
it is not useful to tell your newsreader to nuke all non-signed
messages, as you suggested in your proposed solution --- you'd just be
throwing out the signal with the noise......  

Until nearly everyone on Usenet starts using the public key extension,
we *all* will not have the benefits.  There will be no way to
distinguish the good (but unsigned messages) from the remailer abusers'
unsigned (or untrusted) messages.

							- Ted