Re: Secrecy: My life as a nym. (Was: nym blown?)

At 07:31 PM 11/12/96 -0800, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
...
>actually, there are some amusing things going on here with cpunk
>"rules." are cpunks in favor of pseudonyms or not? one famous
>cpunk madman wrote under a pseudonym to the list, and many
>cypherpunk went to great lengths to try to derive his identity.
>is this a case of respecting pseudonyms? or is it more a case of
>the double standard at best, hypocrisy at worst, 
>"respect my pseudonyms, but yours are fair game"?  
...
Cypherpunks try to break each others crypto as well, in an attempt to evolve
crypto to the point that it is not crackable.  Perhaps you would like to
make pseudonyms easier to protect.  If you developed a pseudonym and gave it
its own public/private key pair, and if people bothered to check your
signatures with the appropiate sources, then you should be able to protect
it.  Of course, I just assume that those on the list are who they say they
are, I have e-mail access on the schools LAN, and PGP on the machine in my
room.  There is an air gap between the two, so getting a key requires a two
way trip.  I may start validating in the future, but I don't now.  The point
I was trying to make is, is "cracking" of pseudonyms any different than
cracking of algorythims?

Sean Roach writes:
>  Cypherpunks try to break each others crypto as well, in an
>  attempt to evolve crypto to the point that it is not crackable.

I would like to chime in and say that this point will never be reached.  Each  
revision of software potentially contains new chinks in the armor.  Eternal  
Vigilance is not only the price of freedom, but security as well.


andrew