From: cactus@bb.hks.net (L. Todd Masco)
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 94 09:28:43 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: New signing service
Message-ID: <3bl1cc$7mn@bb.hks.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Okay, this is a-what *I* am going to do right now.

Today, I'll throw together a mechanism on cypherpunks@hks.net that will
sign all messages coming through it and send them on to cypherpunks@toad.com.
It'll have a key with a 384-bit modulus, included below.

It will not (now) check signatures on incoming mail.  It might in the
future.

To be clear, this is not what I suggested before: I will not be generating
a new key for each message.  This is also not a service that guarantees
the integrity of mail before it reaches here: mail can easily be
forged to this site.

This will guarantee one and only one thing: that a message signed by
this service has been received by cypherpunks@hks.net and forwarded to
cypherpunks@toad.com.  The only thing that this prevents is having mail
forged to a subset of cypherpunks appear as though it went to all
of cypherpunks.

If this is successful I can later go on to attack the signing question,
though I think key management is likely to be a genuine pain in the ass
for that, probably requiring human interaction on a per-key basis.  Also,
when the software works smoothly it could be moved to toad.com.  I think
part of the job of mailing list software is to guarantee the integrity
of the envelope a message: signing all messages is a clear step towards
that goal.

Please send comments to me directly at cactus@hks.net, since I won't
necessarily be catching up on cypherpunks while I'm working on this.

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.6.2

mQA9Ay7eB60AAAEBgOGkDzo6mkSp3G4W3EXwMWK8SrTVSmosuN5Y7Z2FdBS5uJ3o
1O0XNAwqGc8CJ9W3bQAFEbQuQ3lwaGVycHVuayBzaWduaW5nIGFnZW50IDxjeXBo
ZXJwdW5rc0Boa3MubmV0Pg==
=ajZM
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
-- 
Todd Masco     | "Roam home to a dome, Where Georgian and Gothic once stood
cactus@hks.net |  Now chemical bonds alone guard our blond(e)s,
cactus@bb.com  |  And even the plumbing looks good."  - B Fuller