From: eric@remailer.net (Eric Hughes)
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 94 20:28:29 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: making public keys public
In-Reply-To: <199412020227.VAA06380@bb.hks.net>
Message-ID: <199412020527.VAA14718@largo.remailer.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


   From: lmccarth@ducie.cs.umass.edu

   If you're not going to make the public key public, why use public key
   cryptography at all ?  Save time and effort and use a symmetric cipher.

You can't do authentication with a shared secret key, because there's
nothing to differentiate the two sides of the link.

In addition, a closely held public key might be held by 10 people;
with secret keys there are 90 different private keys instances to
manage.

Eric