Re: Senator, your public key please?

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 8:45 PM 5/20/96, Andrew Loewenstern wrote:
...
>Your local KCA (KKK Certification Authority) could as easily issue a "This
>key is owned by a Nigger." certificate for a public key as TRW could issue a
>"This key is owned by a Deadbeat." certificate.  Presumably, future versions
>of PGP and other public-key crypto systems will support free-form certificate
>generation and not the quasi-fixed-definition signatures currently found in
>PGP.

Indeed, this is one of the things I was referring to. To wit, that one can
possibly (emphasis on "possibly," modulo legal actions, a la my point) use
"Metzger's Web of Trust" to effectively discriminate.

(ObCaveat: I personally think a free society cannot/should not outlaw
discrimination in any form, save that by government.)

>You can be sure that there will be rallying cries for laws to be passed to
>ensure the accuracy of statements made in key certificates, that characters
>are not defamed, that libel is not committed, etc...  Lots of the same issues
>involving any other type of speech and the international and sometimes
>untraceable nature of the Net.  What do you do about a signature on your key,
>posted anonymously to the net, which names you as one of the Four
>Horsemen(*tm)?

By the way, this issue has some echoes of another technogical issue: the
use of neural nets for loan approval software. Turns out that when a bunch
of things are entered into a NN loan package, including the all-important
default rate, the applicant's age, income, race, sex, education, employment
history, credit history, etc., that NN loan packages "end up" rejecting
many black applicants, more so than white or Asian applicants. (The NN
"concluded" that blacks were higher risks for default than whites/Asians.)

Even if no human being ever entered his or her biases and prejudices, the
NN spit out this result.

I recall there being talk about requiring "equality of outcomes," and that
such NNs might have to have deliberately-biased inputs fed in, but I don't
know what ever happened to this issue.

In any case, I think this sort of issue, and the semi-related issue of
"discrimination via key signatures," to be likely important issues in the
courts in the coming years.

--Tim

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."