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Article #752

authentication

#752
From: keith.willis
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 12:31
56 lines
2540 bytes

[on 25 Aug 1992, Carl Ellison said]

CE>   I just don't see what the big deal is.  You'll never meet me.  You
CE>   can't care what I look like much less what genes I have.  If you were to
CE>   know, would that make my identification any more positive?

        Oh, I agree.  But in the given scenario, which was that I
        had to come to some arrangement with an unknown person, you
        for example, which would allow me to know for definite that
        future communications purporting to come from you, were in
        fact from you.  A rider was that a third person was posited
        who was deliberately attempting to subvert this secure
        channel (I believe it was 'George Bush's evil brother
        Skippy':-).

CE>   If I give you an RSA key, that's all you need.  I'm the only one in the world
CE>   who knows the two primes in N.  That defines *me*.  Balding head or not,

        As I said before, I have no way of knowing, for example, that
        the public key that you see attached to the foot of this
        letter is the one I put there.  A hypothetical intruder
        could substitute his own.  Likewise, when you send your key
        to _me_, he could do the same.  That way, he could intercept
        your mail to me, read it, alter it, and then encrypt a
        completely different message, forward it to me, and I would
        have no way of knowing that it did not come from you.

        Maybe I'm missing something here, but I keep coming back to
        the idea that a 'trusted central authority' is always
        required.

CE>   What more do you want?

        A bit more <g>


---
 ~ PQ 2.15 194 ~ 
-- keith.willis@almac.co.uk --------------PGP v1.0 public key

section 1 of xxencode 5.15 of file keith.pub    by R.E.M.

begin 644 keith.pub
haP++EVMp8WdLOKlgOLAg62hZOLFc60+U60-fNKZoO0trOKlgOLB+MKlhMKAi
hMqwiRKjS+yJyZtYZQTYA4SG-hicSo98DNzwCFBRrYnazPCxQocdfDsxJmvo0
htIFn-XszZZFRZP4qMkiQN8JTNxApqAeD6LnR+XBHn9S89L+FovMBMl8UzU0d
gdm6JBZFu8wURFrIGcpQs8yrb5bsgM1mEXUPRx64UdlSE1GAIbUaNanQ3+-23
+
end
sum -r/size 64445/274 section (from "begin" to "end")
sum -r/size 57997/179 entire input file
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Message-ID: <1992Aug28.864.24@ALMAC>
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!mcsun!uknet!ALMAC!keith.willis
From: keith.willis@almac.co.uk
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: authentication
Message-ID: <1992Aug28.864.24@ALMAC>
Date: 28 Aug 92 12:31:27 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: ALMAC BBS Ltd
Lines: 56