From: patrick@Verity.COM (Patrick Horgan)
To: hfinney@shell.portal.com
Message Hash: e77c77bb4c90cb7f65f9d8ec6ee1a79d5871ba68c618c8dc177f1ed10da35c73
Message ID: <9510061805.AA01185@cantina.verity.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1995-10-06 18:09:21 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 6 Oct 95 11:09:21 PDT
From: patrick@Verity.COM (Patrick Horgan)
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 95 11:09:21 PDT
To: hfinney@shell.portal.com
Subject: Re: Certificate proposal
Message-ID: <9510061805.AA01185@cantina.verity.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
>
> I may not have been clear: the certificate I was referring to was the one
> from Egghead, the one which I will use to make sure that I have a valid
> key for Egghead. Such a certificate would of course not have my credit
> card number; it would probably have some information related to Egghead.
> My rhetorical point was that information would most plausibly be a NAME
> by which I would refer to Egghead. I am still trying to understand how
> these proposals to take names out of the picture will apply to a
> commonplace situation like this one.
The certificate would identify the entity you're having commerce with. It
doesn't have to have a name, the certificate would replace the need for a
name. If you wanted a name, you could use the certificate to access it.
The certificate would give you a public key that would be the central
identifier. Associated with it might be many attributes of the key-entity.
You might use the key to find out a name, and bank account number, or
an ip-address to use to communicate with. Don't think of it as being a
name, "Egghead Software", and this is the key associated with it. Think
of the key as the central thing.
Patrick
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1995-10-06 (Fri, 6 Oct 95 11:09:21 PDT) - Re: Certificate proposal - patrick@Verity.COM (Patrick Horgan)