From: Kevin L Prigge <Kevin.L.Prigge-2@cis.umn.edu>
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 1996 07:37:39 +0800
To: jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind)
Subject: Re: [local] Report on Portland Cpunks meeting
In-Reply-To: <ad2be4eb00021004ee75@[132.162.233.188]>
Message-ID: <31093ac10192002@noc.cis.umn.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Jonathan Rochkind said:
> 
> At 11:13 PM 01/23/96, Bruce Baugh wrote:
> >The nym signing is an idle thought of mine. I have a nym key which is, at
> >the moment, signed only by itself. I know friends of mine have nym accounts.
> >if we could assemble a group of folks whom I can trust enough to link the
> >nym and myself, it'd be nice to add some more signatures to the nym key, and
> >vice versa.
> 
> If, on the other hand, I sign "Toxic Avenger"'s key, then what benefit is
> this for third parties?  Since Toxic Avenger is, by intention, _not_ linked
> to a real person, I'm not saying that I feel confident that this key really
> belongs to any particular real person.  What am I saying?

That the key belongs to the person(s) assuming the identity of
"Toxic Avenger". When someone signs my key, they are saying that
they believe that the key belongs to me, a person who has the
identity of "Kevin Prigge". Since I am a real person, I can 
prove that some other entity knows me as Kevin Prigge via some form
of identification issued by the state, and I can prove that I 
control the key. For a 'nym, there is no identification that is
issued, which may be the point of having an 'nym. The best that
can be said is that the user@someplace posting with a 'nym of
"whatever" controls the key, which is all I'd be certifying with
my signature on the key.

-- 
Kevin L. Prigge         |"Have you ever gotten tired of hearing those 
UofM Central Computing  | ridiculous AT&T commercials claiming credit 
email: klp@tc.umn.edu   | for things that don't even exist yet? 
010010011101011001100010| You will." -Emmanuel Goldstein