[messaging] The Simple Thing

[Tao Effect]

On Sep 27, 2014, at 2:06 PM, Trevor Perrin <trevp at trevp.net> wrote:
> You were previously proposing that *individual* users register keys in
> the NameCoin id/ space, as Alaric describes.

In the emails you linked to, the closest I came to doing that was here:

https://moderncrypto.org/mail-archive/messaging/2014/000610.html

Where I said: "I'm greg on Namecoin btw. Now you have everything you need to send me secured comms. No fingerprints necessary."

In the others, I only said that the blockchain would be used to distribute public keys securely. That still hasn't changed.

> Now you're just proposing provider-based key directories.  And you'd
> grandfather existing providers, so this just amounts to Gmail
> publishing gmail user keys, Yahoo publishing yahoo users keys, etc.
> 
> That's the same idea lots of people have proposed.

It has similarities, yes, but it is not completely the same. The connection between users and Yahoo would be MITM-proof. Now, Yahoo's users would still need to trust Yahoo to faithfully give out their public keys.

If users didn't trust Yahoo, they could combine this technique with Moxie's "Simple Thing" and include along with their emails their Namecoin id, where their public key could be verified without any provider like Yahoo interfering.

Here, you'd also be able to run your own mail server and not be worried about a MITM interfering ala X.509 rogue CAs.

Thanks for pointing that discrepancy out Trevor. Indeed, my thinking has evolved a bit on this, and the reason is because I came to the conclusion that a global namespace of names, might, by its very nature, have problems with fairness (i.e. why should this particular "greg" own the global "greg" token) as well as ease of use, compatibility, spam, squatters, etc.

Kind regards,
Greg Slepak

--
Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA.
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