[messaging] The Simple Thing

[elijah]

On 09/24/2014 03:48 PM, Tao Effect wrote:

> So, unless I'm missing something, to me it seems like your simple thing
> leads to a handful of giant entities managing the public keys for 98% of
> people.

The model in question is federated provider endorsement, not a central
repository. My usage of "well-known" is a reference to RFC 5785
"Defining Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers"
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785, although I don't think it needs to
exactly be in this form. I should have made that more clear.

It is true, however, that I think a central repository is an acceptable
fallback when no provider participation is available, but that is a
different discussion.

> The Blockchain *is* the simple thing.

When you have a golden hammer, everything looks like a nail. Less
flippantly, even if a blockchain is perfectly lightweight,
instantaneous, and universally supported, the discussion on this list
regarding the disconnect between blockchain semantics and email address
semantics are no small matter.

-elijah