Re: [cap-talk] Re: First point of consensus

[Ka-Ping Yee]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, [iso-8859-1] Tyler Close wrote:
> On Feb 9, 2005, at 1:16 PM, Ka-Ping Yee wrote:
> > We don't even know what it means to "correctly" design or
> > implement petnames yet.
>
> I think there's a lot of solid logic in my YURL Naming paper, much of
> which is relevant to many of the sub-threads that are currently active.
> See <http://www.waterken.com/dev/YURL/Name/>. I've spent a lot of time
> thinking it over, restarted several times, and followed many alternate
> approaches.

Tyler, i respect your judgement and intelligence.  I think your logic
makes a lot of sense.  But having "a lot of solid logic" does not imply
having the right answer when it comes to human interfaces.  Until we've
tested it, to say we know the correct design is simply overreaching.

> For example, unlike the address toolbar, the petname toolbar is
> incorruptible. The phisher cannot enlist the help of the petname
> toolbar in deceiving the user. As the Shmoo URLs show, a correctly
> implemented address toolbar can be made to assist the phishing
> deception. This point is important and I suspect is near consensus on
> the cap-talk list.

I agree that petnames are qualitatively different from existing
practice, and qualitatively different in a good way, so i empathize
with your attempt to find a more absolute statement of consensus.

I think it may be possible to say something more absolute about
exactly what happens at the moment the user *uses* a petname, but
i'm afraid it may not be possible to be much more absolute about
the petname toolbar.

> Talking about the petname toolbar solely in terms of degree gives the
> impression that a highly skilled phisher will defeat an educated and
> alert petname toolbar user. I think we can reach consensus that this
> impression is false. What do you think?

For instance, i am unable to state consensus with the statement you
make here.  A highly skilled phisher can defeat the petname toolbar
by persuading the user to make a new name assignment.  It seems to
me that the assignment of petnames upon encountering a new site is
the weak point of the petname toolbar, and it makes sense to me to
focus some design effort in that area.


-- ?!ng