Cypherwaffle on spoofing

[m5@vail.tivoli.com (Mike McNally)]

Arthur Chandler writes:
 >   What I find odd is the number and  vehemence of posts ON A LIST DEVOTED 
 > TO ENCRYPTION saying "Hey, it's a  fact of life, accept it" -- even  
 > dragging out Machiavelli's profoundly  mistaken "if you can't enforce 
 > it,  don't prohibit it." 

Oh well, it's "profoundly" mistaken, so we'd better change our tune.
OK, let's prohibit it.  The net sure will be wonderful once that magic
wand is waved.

 > Of all the groups  on the Internet, I would 
 > think that  this one would be in a special position to say "put your 
 > digital John Hancock on your post if you want to to taken seriously."

Uhhhh...  That's the *point*.  It is a waste of time and energy to
prohibit anonymity/pseudonymity when it's so easy to render it
completely ineffective through the use of strong cryptography and
digital signature technology.

Note that if it weren't for the fact that humans can use sensory
mechanisms to determine with some confidence the identity of a human
they're talking to, we'd have been faced with the same problem for
quite some time.  That's one of the foundations of the whole
cypherpunk concept: freedom to develop and use strong cryptosystems
makes this confidence of identity possible over electronic networks.
(Please pardon my presumption at speaking for the "organization"; I'm
paraphrasing something Mike Godwin said at the Austin EFF Crypto
meeting.)

Note also that the problem *does* exist now: politicians recieve
letters about hot issues from constituents---or at least they're
*assumed* to be from constituents.  How many votes have been changed
over the years by clever miscreants sending many letters under
different assumed identities?

--
Mike McNally