Senator Leahy's Public Key

The more I think about Senator Leahy's public key, the more I keep coming
back to a point I only alluded to before.

How do we know the key is actually his key?

The key is only self signed.  It could be a fake.  If, as I have assumed,
its primary use will be to sign public statements posted to the net, how
will we know they are actually from Senator Leahy, and not some impostor?

I strongly urge the senator to join the web of trust and get some other
signatures on his key.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz       | The CDA means  | Periwinkle  --  Computer Consulting
(408)356-8506     | lost jobs and  | 16345 Englewood Ave.
frantz@netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

On Sat, 4 May 1996, Bill Frantz wrote:

> The more I think about Senator Leahy's public key, the more I keep coming
> back to a point I only alluded to before.
> 
> How do we know the key is actually his key?
> 
> The key is only self signed.  It could be a fake.  If, as I have assumed,
> its primary use will be to sign public statements posted to the net, how
> will we know they are actually from Senator Leahy, and not some impostor?
> 
> I strongly urge the senator to join the web of trust and get some other
> signatures on his key.

I'll visit his office and ask if he wants he key signed this week.

> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Bill Frantz       | The CDA means  | Periwinkle  --  Computer Consulting
> (408)356-8506     | lost jobs and  | 16345 Englewood Ave.
> frantz@netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
> 
> 
> 

---
My preferred and soon to be permanent e-mail address:unicorn@schloss.li
"In fact, had Bancroft not existed,       potestas scientiae in usu est
Franklin might have had to invent him."    in nihilum nil posse reverti
00B9289C28DC0E55  E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information
Opp. Counsel: For all your expert testimony needs: jimbell@pacifier.com

Bill Frantz said:
> The more I think about Senator Leahy's public key, the more I keep coming
> back to a point I only alluded to before.
> 
> How do we know the key is actually his key?
> 
> The key is only self signed.  It could be a fake.  If, as I have assumed,
> its primary use will be to sign public statements posted to the net, how
> will we know they are actually from Senator Leahy, and not some impostor?
> 
> I strongly urge the senator to join the web of trust and get some other
> signatures on his key.

Actually, I've been thinking about this, and how do we *really* know that
*anyone's* keys are actually theirs?  I'm new to this list and have been 
collecting some of the keys from people who post with PGP signatures, but 
even at that, I never certify them myself because I am not 100% absolutely
certain that the key in question belongs to that person.  After all, what
if some clever hacker dropped in and replaced someone's .plan file, or 
edited their index.html file?  There's no real way to be absolutely 
certain.

How certain are we that the keyservers are 100% bulletproof?  Hell, I 
could call Joe Schmoe up and say "tell me your fingerprint", but how do I 
*really* know I'm talking to Joe unless I knew him before getting his 
signature?  

Just some thoughts about some of the basic flaws in this sort of system.  

BTW, I collect the signatures because I have a patched version of Elm which
goes out and automatically tries to verify all PGP signed messages, and 
it's kind of annoying when it can't find the signature (all sorts of junk
goes sprawling up my screen).  


> Bill Frantz       | The CDA means  | Periwinkle  --  Computer Consulting
> (408)356-8506     | lost jobs and  | 16345 Englewood Ave.
> frantz@netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

-- 
Matt Smith - msmith@unislc.slc.unisys.com
"Nothing travels faster than light, with the possible exception of bad news, 
which follows its own rules." - Douglas Adams, "Mostly Harmless"
Disclaimer:  I came up with these ideas, so they're MINE!

> Actually, I've been thinking about this, and how do we *really* know that
> *anyone's* keys are actually theirs?  I'm new to this list and have been 
> collecting some of the keys from people who post with PGP signatures, but 
> even at that, I never certify them myself because I am not 100% absolutely
> certain that the key in question belongs to that person.  After all, what
> if some clever hacker dropped in and replaced someone's .plan file, or 
> edited their index.html file?  There's no real way to be absolutely 
> certain.

This is exactly what the web of trust is about.  The fact is that you
can't trust the Keyservers (they were never designed to be trusted);
you can't trust .plan files; you can't trust index.html files.
However you can trust signatures made by trusted keys.  That is why
the web of trust works.

For example, I've met in person with a lot of people and we've signed
each others' keys.  We've used various methods to "prove" identity.
Sometimes it's been a long time of personal interactions (close
friends).  Sometimes it's been a number of certifying documents, IDs,
etc.  Sometimes it's been a piece of knowledge that I know the other
has but no one else has.

The point is that once I'm attached to the web of trust I have a means
to verify other keys.  I can set up a CA that way (MIT has one) --
there is a keysigner that will use out-of-band means to verify the
identity of a user and then use that to sign a PGP key in that
person's name.

> How certain are we that the keyservers are 100% bulletproof?  Hell, I 
> could call Joe Schmoe up and say "tell me your fingerprint", but how do I 
> *really* know I'm talking to Joe unless I knew him before getting his 
> signature?  

As I said already, the keyservers are not bulletproof.  In fact, they
were never designed to be trusted.  They were designed to be an
untrusted key distribution system.  The end-user is still supposed to
verify the signatures on they keys received from the keyserver.

As for calling up Joe Schmoe, how did you get his number?  Did you
look it up in a phone book?  Call directory assistance?  These are
other means of identification, too.

You just need to look at it from a different angle.

-derek

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

> > Actually, I've been thinking about this, and how do we *really* know that
> > *anyone's* keys are actually theirs?  I'm new to this list and have been 
> > collecting some of the keys from people who post with PGP signatures, but 
> > even at that, I never certify them myself because I am not 100% absolutely
> > certain that the key in question belongs to that person.  After all, what
> > if some clever hacker dropped in and replaced someone's .plan file, or 
> > edited their index.html file?  There's no real way to be absolutely 
> > certain.
> 
> This is exactly what the web of trust is about.  The fact is that you
> can't trust the Keyservers (they were never designed to be trusted);
> you can't trust .plan files; you can't trust index.html files.
> However you can trust signatures made by trusted keys.  That is why
> the web of trust works.
> 
> For example, I've met in person with a lot of people and we've signed
> each others' keys.  We've used various methods to "prove" identity.
> Sometimes it's been a long time of personal interactions (close
> friends).  Sometimes it's been a number of certifying documents, IDs,
> etc.  Sometimes it's been a piece of knowledge that I know the other
> has but no one else has.

The problem is entering this "Web of trust".  You have to know someone who
is already in The Web in order to start signing your keys.  I don't know
anyone around here who uses PGP but me.  That's why I've been getting
keys off of this list.  Gotta start somewhere, however, I feel that this 
is a very shaky way to start.

> The point is that once I'm attached to the web of trust I have a means
> to verify other keys.  I can set up a CA that way (MIT has one) --
> there is a keysigner that will use out-of-band means to verify the
> identity of a user and then use that to sign a PGP key in that
> person's name.

I agree that once the WOT is set up, everything should work hunky dory, but
introducing yourself into this web isn't an easy thing.  Since we know that
the keyservers aren't bulletproof, how many keys do I grab from there in 
order to start my keyring?  One?  Ten?  500?  Statistically speaking, how 
many of those have been compromised and can no longer be trusted?

> You just need to look at it from a different angle.

That's what I'm trying to do.  Maybe I'm just looking at it all backwards 
or something, but it's something I've been thinking about since I've been 
collecting keys lately.

> -derek

- -- 
Matt Smith - msmith@unislc.slc.unisys.com
"Nothing travels faster than light, with the possible exception of bad news, 
which follows its own rules." - Douglas Adams, "Mostly Harmless"
Disclaimer:  I came up with these ideas, so they're MINE!

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> 
> This is exactly what the web of trust is about.  The fact is that you
> can't trust the Keyservers (they were never designed to be trusted);
> you can't trust .plan files; you can't trust index.html files.
> However you can trust signatures made by trusted keys.  That is why
> the web of trust works.
 
> For example, I've met in person with a lot of people and we've signed
> each others' keys.  We've used various methods to "prove" identity.
> Sometimes it's been a long time of personal interactions (close
> friends).  Sometimes it's been a number of certifying documents, IDs,
> etc.  Sometimes it's been a piece of knowledge that I know the other
> has but no one else has.
 
What if you needed to set up a key server for a mass base of customers...
Obviously, authenticating them via e-mail would be difficult, verifying 
them in person would be harder.  Would there be any reasonable way to 
verify hundreds or thousands of customers?  Any manual method would 
be highly undesirable, right?  Imagine the labor involved....but lets 
pretend that the labor is not the deciding factor.  What would be the 
best way to verify the customers keys if you couldn't visit each 
customer in person? 

For example, would a photo copy of a drivers license be enough?

> The point is that once I'm attached to the web of trust I have a means
> to verify other keys.  I can set up a CA that way (MIT has one) --
> there is a keysigner that will use out-of-band means to verify the
> identity of a user and then use that to sign a PGP key in that
> person's name.

This is a good idea.  The obvious question is:

Would using an "out-of-band means" be worth the time and trouble if 
you had to scale the project to a commercial level?  Would it  
be a show stopper if the keys weren't verified?

> As I said already, the keyservers are not bulletproof.  In fact, they
> were never designed to be trusted.  They were designed to be an
> untrusted key distribution system.  The end-user is still supposed to
> verify the signatures on they keys received from the keyserver.
 
Last thought...if the end-user verifies the signature, is that enough
protection?

Eric