Re: The Market for Crypto--A Curmudgeon's View

[eric@remailer.net (Eric Hughes)]

   From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick)

   Yes, but you are denying the way in which delaying, like bouncing,
   actively interferes with the timely forwarding of non-signers' messages,
   while merely marking them is a more passive form of harrassment.  

A delay for one minute (assuming notice for the delay) is hardly
different than notification only.  A delay for a month is hardly
different than a bounce.  Not all delays are the same.  They cannot be
analyzed as a single category but are better analyzed with respect to
the characteristic time scales of the discussion.

   You keep insisting that delaying unsigned messages does not interfere
   with non-signers' abilities to participate in the discussion.  I say you
   are wrong.  It's a positive hindrance.  

This is statement is true for large delays and false for small ones.
The interesting issue to me is where a boundary might lie.

   (Are you going to make sure that all the signatures are valid, or will
   you accept someone sticking a PGP signature into their .sig and using it
   over and over?)

At first, it would just be a recognizer for syntax, but at both ends.

A second effort might actually hash the message but not bother with
the signature itself.  The second effort would require almost all the
processing involved in a real signature and require the same
architecture.  It would not, however, be subject to the key
distribution problem that I don't want to make a prerequisite.

It occurs to me that a format with just a hash might be generally
useful against random data corruption, and not just a workaround hack.

Eric