Scripsit Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I see you have never been in a large key signing party. There > is a certain expectation of trust, since no one can actrually detect > delibrate forgeries.
If a key-signing method needs any particularly trustworthy behavior from the people asking to have keys signed, it is broken, plan and simple. It was broken from day one, and it becomes neither more nor less broken because anybody in particular does not behave according to the rule. The entire _point_ of the web-of-trust is to not take people's claim about their identity at face value. It is a process rooted in _distrust_ and if the mechanisms end up with certified trust where none is warranted, the mechanisms are at fault. You seem to think that key-signing parties only work if all participants are honest. That may be so, but if all participants ARE honest, key-signing in general would be pointless. If the parties do not work in the presense of dishonest participants they are completely broken, serve no useless purpose, and might as well be abandoned. This is true whether or not any precense of dishonest participants have been speculated or confirmed, and if it is true after Martins experiment, it was equally true before it. > There items I used to check on were the photograph, seplling of the > name, expiration date for the document, and, optionally, age. If you do your checks on a way that assume honesty on the signee's part, then your checks are broken. When you sign keys you should _assume_ that the unknown person who wants you to sign a key is dishonest about who he claims to be, and only sign if you see something that positively convince you otherwise. > -- since good faith expectations were that people were not > trying to game the system. Good faith expectations have absolutely no place in a system that is based on distrusting people and demanding proof of their claims. > If people start bringing in forged documents, no amount of > caution on part of laypeople like most software developers is proof > against such deception. Correct. If you think the system depends on people being honest in the first place, the system has no conceivable useful purpose. -- Henning Makholm "Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit." -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
