[cap-talk] FW: What do CAs contribute...complications in the short term benefit

[marcs]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: marcs [mailto:marcs at skyhunter.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 9:22 PM
> To: 'Discussion of E and other capability languages'
> Subject: What do CAs contribute...complications in the short 
> term benefit
> 
> 
> I consider the preceding story of Verisign's short term 
> success far too optimistic. Certificate authorities have a 
> number of hurdles to overcome. The following is a list of the 
> hurdles that I can compile off the top of my head, all 
> hurdles that have been brought to my attention at one point 
> or another by people who are not cryptographers. Some are 
> true, some are false, all are really hard to answer.
> 
> -- All certificates are created in the "expired" state. You 
> will have an extraordinary effort persuading people this is 
> not true. My personal experiences suggest that, in practice, 
> it is true, though I understand in theory it is not.
> 
> -- All certificates pop warning dialog boxes. You aren't 
> going to understand the gibberish in the box. Just click "OK". 
> 
> -- Why am I renting -- renting! -- my own name from Verisign? 
> It's my name! I'm already irritated that I can't own my own 
> name outright for my web site. I am not gonna repeat that mistake.
> 
> -- Dear Verisign. I am the real Mark Miller. Why did you give 
> my name to someone else?
> 
> -- Verisign, I am noble and honorable and I want the PawPal 
> name. What's this nonsense about it being too similar to the 
> PayPal name? Anyone can see we're different, shucks, we don't 
> do the same things at all.
> 
> -- Verisign, look, I know you can't give me the name 
> Elisabeth Taylor even though that really is my name. But here 
> in Kingman, I'm the homecoming queen, and when people see 
> Elisabeth Taylor, they really do expect it to be me. Can't we 
> cut some sort of deal, just for Kingman?
> 
> -- If I can just fool Verisign into giving me a cert with 
> Microsoft as the name for a couple of days, I'll be in hog 
> heaven. Wait...uh...that means that if someone else fools 
> Verisign into giving them Microsoft, they're gonna rip me 
> off. Didn't I hear that somebody just did that recently?
> 
> -- I heard that Robert Ludlum was writing a book about a 
> blackmailer who went around to each of the seven people who 
> hold pieces of the Verisign GodKey and collected all the 
> pieces. He'd be able to impersonate the whole world! What 
> would happen if Al Queda did that for real?
> 
> -- It is just Evil to give one Corporation that much Power. 
> (in socialist circles, I learned a couple of years ago, 
> Verisign's corporate strategy is referred to as Colonization. 
> If you know socialists, you know that there are few epithets 
> as harsh. Well, "free-market" would be worse :-).
> 
> --marcs
> 
>