From: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 20:55:59 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Quarantining Toxic Waste
Message-ID: <9311170454.AA26571@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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I'm writing this in hopes there are still some sane people left here.

It's quite shocking to hear such blase arguments about identity from
the people who have erected the current key server system. At the very
minimum, these people should make their policies about pseudospoofing
clear in policy documents -- anyone listed here could be imaginary,
there are no guarantees.

I'm going to make some arguments why a key server system with true
identities should be completely quarantined from one that allows Medusa's Snakes:

1) First, honesty and dishonesty are fundamentally incompatible. Our
technology should reflect that.

2) No one that ever subscribed to a database that had tentacles would
be interested in one that guaranteed none were there, and vice versa.

3) if the databases overlapped, it would be easier for criminals to
infect a `true name' system. ah, how the psychopunks understand this.

4) sequestered servers (the `reputable' ones) could eventually hook up
with all those neat government databases on identities. A Cypherpunks
Worst Nightmare. Hee, hee.

5) I remember a P.Metzger argument with M.Graff on some mailing list
about using DNS as a kind of key distribution system. The argument
boiled down to the point: can *anyone* insert entries? Coincidentally,
this is the critical question in a True Name vs. Toxic Waste Dump databases.

6) The software already exists to have a separate network of True Names.

7) People interested in True Names might want to sort their mail and
news interactively, dynamically. I imagine that when I connect to an
NNTP server, I also set up a socket session with a True Name database
that replies to my queries in real time. People interested in toxic
waste would not be interested in any such system.


There are many other arguments. I'm sure all the Psychopunks will come
up with their clever arguments to sabotage any True Name debate or
database system. I stopped believing in Cypherpunk Honesty about the
same time I stopped believing J. Dinkelacker. <g>