[cap-talk] Firefox and identifiability - smart users needed for Petnames/YURL?

[Ian G]

Jed at Webstart wrote:

> At 04:31 PM 2/8/2005, Ian G wrote:
> ...
>
>> However, I suspect none of this reaches the realms
>> of practicality until it is decided what the basic
>> unit of trust is going to be in the browser.  Right
>> now it might be an x.509 key.  Other proposals have
>> been made.
>
>
> Why does this concern you?  Go ahead and use an x.509
> key now and adjust to something else later if it comes
> along.  Where's the problem?


Well, the issue is that "how the petname
gets added in and used" is somewhat or
highly dependent on how the naming or
pointing is done.  In software engineering
terms, first we would decide on what we
are doing w.r.t. Zooko's triangle, and later
on we would fill out the gaps with (potentially)
petnames.  Mark Miller makes the point that
petnames is a device to bug fix the ZT law.
First comes the ramifications of that, and
later on comes petnames.

Yet, I gather the petname concept is not
intending to use x.509 certs.  Which means
there is a whole naming infrastructure to
create and put in place.  That looks like a
pretty tall order to me.

>> Unfortunately, we can't see enough
>> into the future to be able to decide how that is
>> going to play out,
>
>
> You seem to be able to see far enough to see
> value in the name/identity binding that the Petname
> mechanism adds.


Yes, I've seen the proposal - near enough -
in other proposals.  It's an important element
in a cohesive strategy, but it's just one element,
and I wouldn't rely on it alone, as is being
suggested here.  That doesn't make sense in
security systems.

> You seem to see far enough
> ahead to see value in the "YURL" (fingerprint or
> the like) addition to a URL to get a positive ID
> to bind with the Petname.  Isn't that enough to
> move forward?  Why wallow in the ambiguous
> and clearly error prone present when we can
> see technical improvements - if we can get
> a consensus...


No.  I'm comparing the Petname proposal
to a few other proposals.  I think the other
proposals have more merit.

>> so until we do know, John Halleck's criticism rules, IMHO.
>
>
> Which criticism was that?  Perhaps this one?:
>
> Halleck: "It is a nice discussion, but baring smarter users,
> I think it is theoretical..."


! Yes it was that, but I read it as "baring lots of things"
it remains theoretical.

> I don't see anything limiting the Petname mechanism and what
> is essentially the YURL mechanism to the 'theoretical' in the
> absence of smarter users.  Both seem to me to add value
> for smart or not smart (perhaps kinder would be experienced
> or inexperienced) users.


There are about 500 million users out there,
with most of them having browsers.  To date,
we have gone through a period of approximately
6-7 years with no change to the browser market.
The current state of the browser market is that
it accepts no changes and no responsibility for
the phishing thing.

Others have tried to do what the petname thing
tries to do.  There is experience out there in the
market in doing this.  If that experience isn't to be
tapped and recognised, then I personally would
look for something magical in the marketing that
allows it to overcome the market barriers (for
example, Netcraft).  I've not seen anything like
that, so I'd say that the proposal will be stalled
at the theoretical / demo level.

That's no bad thing, there are probably a hundred
other proposals at that point.  Every man and his
dog is trying to solve this phishing thing.  Petnames
proposal has the merit of 99% of the others that
the issue is in the browser - user interface.  But
there are others out there that have figured that
out too.

iang

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