Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!isishq!doug
From: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Digital Information Rights
Message-ID: <825.2396037C@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 2 Dec 88 07:30:00 GMT
Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters
Lines: 42


 
 WAC>From: faustus@ic.Berkeley.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher) 
 
 
>How about discussions of using public-key cryptography for 
>identificati on? Why hasn't this become more widespread? Is there 
>really not that much of a need for reliable authentication? 
 
The newsgroup sci.crypt has carried on some useful discussion. 
The software is pretty straightforward. I wrote a pretty 
straightforward implementation some months ago. I dropped the 
project when some good friends in several countries assured me in 
very emphatic tones that the security and intelligence 
authorities in the USA would take extreme interest in my work. 
 
I have no way to evaluate the merits of those concerns. Suffice to 
to say that good software exists, the technique is exceedingly 
simple, and the lack of implementation does lead one to scratch 
one's head. 
 
There seems to be, especially in the USA, a profound fear that 
even mentioning the topic, let alone implementing PKE techniques 
will result in unpleasant correspondence with Big Brother. As I 
said, I have no way of appraising the validity of the concerns 
expressed. I sometimes wonder why I dropped my own PKE project. 
Am I chicken-shit or am I just too busy with other things?? 
 
Again, I'm really not well enough informed to make that judgement 
call. Or am I just chicken-shit?? 
 
Hard to say . . . . 
 
=Doug 
 
  


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