From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 94 17:59:02 PDT
To: entropy@IntNet.net (Jonathan Cooper)
Subject: Quibbling about "Forgeability"
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9408291815.A23061-0100000@xcalibur>
Message-ID: <199408300025.RAA09312@netcom14.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> > 
> > Digitally signed notes are not forgeable.
> 
>    Right.
>   
>    I doubt very seriously that there is anything on the planet that is 
> *ABSOLUTELY* unforgable.   It all comes down to how much energy and 
> resources one is willing to sink into the project.

This is, with due respect quibbling. "Unforgeable" and "unbreakable"
are commonly used terms of art, which we (mostly) all know have
caveats about computational power attached to them. 

Purists may want all such statements modified with things like
"effectively unforgeable" and "effectively unbreakable." Whatever.

It's always important for people to understand that cyphers may be
only computationally secure (to some amount of crunch), but one need
not dwell on it.

Perry was answering a "yeah, but what if people forge digital cash?"
type of question. His brevity was understandable.

--Tim May


-- 
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Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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