Re: Photo ID is not needed for key signings...

Joshua E. Hill (jehill@w6bhz.calpoly.edu) wrote:

> Because _these_ people _are_ binding true names to keys.  That's
> what _this_ is about.

No, they're binding supposedly government-issued ids to keys. There's a
difference.

There are three problems with signing keys based on government-issued ids.

 1. There's no link between a driver's license and an email address,
    so anyone with a license for 'Mark Grant' could claim to be the
    owner of the 'mark@unicorn.com' key.
 2. Governments will issue fake ids to their agents, so there's no 
    proof that that 'Mark Grant' is 'really' 'Mark Grant' and not
    'Joe Sasquatch, NSA, FBI, BATF'.
 3. Thieves have got fed up with faking individual licenses and can
    now do so wholesale; see the following from a recent RISKS
    Digest (18:94)

------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 16:39:50 -0500 (EST)
>From: GaryG4430@aol.com
Subject: Thieves steal license machines

Excuse me Sir, but would you watch my Golden Goose while I go get a cup of
coffee?

Published in the *Portland Oregonian*, 25 Mar 1997, p.2, Around the
Nation:

  Thieves steal license machines

  MIAMI - Last year, Florida bought computers to make driver's licenses
  that are virtually impossible to counterfeit.  But brazen South Florida
  thieves have been stealing the computers, sometimes later returning to the 
  scene to pick up accessories.  In seven burglaries at five virtually
  unprotected driver's license offices from Key Largo to Okeechobee, crooks have
  gathered the $15,000 computers, software and supplies for five complete
  systems -everything they would need to crank out the state's new 
  high-tech, counterfeit-resistant licenses.

Yup, only our high-tech systems can make our high-security, tamperproof,
extremely valuable documents.  And you can't just buy one of these system
just anywhere...

Gary Grossoehme, Oregon Electronics

  [Also commented on by Bob_Frankston@frankston.com, who notes that if the
  new licenses are considered "foolproof", it only increases their value!
  PGN]

------------------------------

At 7:20 AM -0700 6/12/97, Mark Grant wrote:

>No, they're binding supposedly government-issued ids to keys. There's a
>difference.
>
>There are three problems with signing keys based on government-issued ids.
>

> 2. Governments will issue fake ids to their agents, so there's no
>    proof that that 'Mark Grant' is 'really' 'Mark Grant' and not
>    'Joe Sasquatch, NSA, FBI, BATF'.

I understand that "Joe Sasquatch" is actually the newly-issued name for the
BATFag formerly known as "Lon Horiuchi." He can run, but he can't hide
(forever).

(Talk about your assassination politics! The militias have a price on that
guy's head.)

The USG is of course one of the main liars about identity, using
government-issued credentials to lie about past and current identities.
Check into the so-called "Witness Security Program," aka WitSec. (Popularly
known as "Witness Protection.")

A recent vintage list of mappings between apparent True Names and
government-issued fake names, including faked credit reports (the three
major CRAs are of course complicit in this fakery), was floating around in
the underground community a few years ago...acquired from a government
surplus disk drive arrray bought in Martinsburg, W. Va. Many interesting
uses of such a list of stool pigeons and traitors.

Fascinating times, eh?

--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."