re: [local] Report on Portland Cpunks meeting

[jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind)]

At 11:13 PM 01/23/96, Bruce Baugh wrote:
>The nym signing is an idle thought of mine. I have a nym key which is, at
>the moment, signed only by itself. I know friends of mine have nym accounts.
>if we could assemble a group of folks whom I can trust enough to link the
>nym and myself, it'd be nice to add some more signatures to the nym key, and
>vice versa.

I don't understand--what would signatures on a nym's key be good for?  If I
sign your key named "Bruce Baugh", I'm basically saying that I feel
confident that this key really _does_ belong to Bruce Baugh.  Others see my
signature, and say "Jonathan, he's a groovy guy, if he feels confident that
this belons to Bruce, well, he's probably gotten the fingerprint directly
from Bruce in person, and I'm happy to use this key to send mail to Bruce."

If, on the other hand, I sign "Toxic Avenger"'s key, then what benefit is
this for third parties?  Since Toxic Avenger is, by intention, _not_ linked
to a real person, I'm not saying that I feel confident that this key really
belongs to any particular real person.  What am I saying?