From: John.Schofield@sprawl.expressnet.org (John Schofield)
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 94 04:11:26 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: The thread that would not die.  (Mandating signatures)
Message-ID: <c92_9412012244@expressnet.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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    It is silly to talk of someone "owning" the list.  The list is a
community.  The only possible owners are the people in the community.  If we
all left, Eric would still have control over the list--but the list would be
worthless.

    It is just as silly, though, to talk about whether or not Eric has the
"right" to enforce his ideas.  He *CAN* make changes to the list--anything
else is irrelevant.

    This whole discussion seems to be based on the idea that signing
everything is a Good Thing.  Yet I haven't seen a convincing argument for
that.  If I read a forged message, I haven't been hurt.  If the person being
impersonated doesn't exist, nobody has been harmed--and if he does, ONLY that
person has been harmed.

    So, let's put the onus here where it belongs.  If people feel their
reputations are important enough that they need to sign their messages, more
power to them.  If they don't feel it is important, who are you to tell them
the value of THEIR reputations?

    When signatures are easy enough to do, the scale will balance on the side
of security--people will value their reputations more than the trouble it
takes to sign messages.  Until then, people will not sign.

    For me, signing is easy--even though I am ridiculously unconnected right
now.  So I do it, using an off-line mail-reader shell that I wrote and
distributed myself.

    The list members who are convinced that digital signatures are valuable
could do much more to advance their cause by eliminating some of the barriers
to using digital signatures than by mandating them.

    Any type of a stick will not work very well in this situation.  The people
most interested in privacy and encryption are those who are by nature most
individualistic and stubborn.  Forcing them to do something will make most of
them go the other way, or go away.  I know my mind works that way.


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