re: [local] Report on Portland Cpunks meeting

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.

I don't understand--what would signatures on a nym's key be good for?  If I
sign your key named "Bruce Baugh", I'm basically saying that I feel
confident that this key really _does_ belong to Bruce Baugh.  Others see my
signature, and say "Jonathan, he's a groovy guy, if he feels confident that
this belons to Bruce, well, he's probably gotten the fingerprint directly
from Bruce in person, and I'm happy to use this key to send mail to Bruce."

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?

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

On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:

> 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?

"Toxic Avenger" may be known to a group of people (ie he may be a member 
of a terrorist cell). You're claiming that the key belongs to the 
"legitimate" TA...

Jon Lasser
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Lasser                <jlasser@rwd.goucher.edu>            (410)494-3072 
          Visit my home page at http://www.goucher.edu/~jlasser/
  You have a friend at the NSA: Big Brother is watching. Finger for PGP key.