Re: Key Servers

["L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

Mr. Barnes somehow found it possible to write me without assaulting me
with vicious ad hominem attacks, vilifications, obfuscations,
misrepresentations, all approaching blatant lies, completely tangential
points to my posts, and cc:ing my postmaster this time. My postmaster
and I thank you. It is free, too, of a subtle hint of censoring or
blackmailing me by going to `various former classmates and old friends
of mine who are computation center employees, faculty, and
administration members at CSU now.' No tarring me as a `overeager
wannabe' (well, I don't wannabe a pseudospoofer) and a `full fledged
psychopath' on `medication'...

>Why don't you just do the following, which would serve everyone's 
>interests, and would be well within the spirit of the movement:

`movement'? I thought there was no cypherpunk movement. There is only software.

[identity database]
>1) Encourage the existing plan to have *all* PGP keys served.

I dunno. This is a big step. The choice at this point could really
affect future cyberspace, eh? Frankly, I think serious professional
uses of the internet are fundamentally incompatible with
pseudospoofing, and will make design decisions based on that
incontrovertable premise. Like quarantining databases from existing
toxic waste dumps.

>4) (optionally) provide a service mapping from keys -> Real Names,
>   for the ultra-paranoid.

you have just classified 99.9 % of the population as `ultra paranoid'.
But that .1% of the degenerates have never understood the idea of civility anyway.

>People who share your concerns about pseudospoofing would make you
>their most trusted (or only trusted) signer of keys. Presto. Those
>who care, can believe only those keys signed by you are real. Those
>who don't give a damn, believe what they want.

hee, hee. or believe in elaborate, complex fantasies straight from SF...

As an example, look at Ender's Game, where Ender's brother and sister
get on the net under pseudonyms, and get treated just like everyone
else.  There is no biases.  People are judged on their actions and
words, not by who they are, how old they are, what they look like, or
anything like that.  Maybe you are blind, I don't know.  I've never
met you.

who wrote that? I forget <g>

>Mike Graff (explorer@iastate.edu) and I were talking about this a long
>time, and he just beat me to learning enough PERL to write the thing.
>But I'd like to think that the two of us did most all of the design of
>it.  So, in a way, it is my software.

I wonder if Mr. Graff would like to weigh in in this little discussion.