Re: Gov't eyes public-key infrastructure

[Adam Shostack <adam@bwh.harvard.edu>]

| The factoid I heard was that if we're randomly chosen people, there
| a ~99% chance that I have a friend who has a friend who's your friend.
| Dropping one hop, to require us to have a friend in common, reduces
| the probability to something very small.

	The research was done by Stanley Milgram in the late 60's.
(Milgram was the guy who did the 'authority experiments' where a man
in a white coat urged subjects to deliver what they thought was a high
voltage shock to a victim.)

	He handed out books of postcards, and asked that they be
delivered to someone wiht whom he was cooperating.  (An example would
be "Reverend Joe Smith in Phoenix, Arizona).  People were asked to
pass the book on to someone they felt would be able to hand it to Rev
Smith.  At each pass, people were asked to mail in a post card.  The
average for the US was 6 post cards.

	I might be able to dig out references to this if folks really
want.

Adam


-- 
Adam Shostack 				       adam@bwh.harvard.edu

Politics.  From the greek "poly," meaning many, and ticks, a small,
annoying bloodsucker.