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Re: Proposal for new Attribute packet



In <>, on 03/10/98 
   at 01:15 PM, Jack Repenning <jackr@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

>I'm not sure this addresses the use Hal had in mind.  An implication of
>allowing an attribute packet "wherever a userid packet may be" is that it
>can be signed by another party.  I imagine the UI he has in mind would
>allow this other party to add the attribute, rather than (or, "in
>addition to") the key owner doing so.  The end goal is (I think) the
>ability to express the meaning of your signature ... "I certify this key
>for business purposes, but I wouldn't trust this blighter with the
>personal secrets of a snail."  

>You might do this with additional UserIDs, but only if you allow them to
>be added by non-owners (a capability recently retracted by PGPInc
>implementations); you also would have some conflict over whether to match
>values in the attributes when searching for a key.

>At least, I think that's the sort of thing he was getting at.  Perhaps a
>bit more info about intended use, and structure of the packet to support
>it, would be in order.

I'm not sure I like this at all. It is one thing to allow 3rd parties to
attach their verification of the userID of a key. It is quite another
thing to allow then to add any information they wanted to. There are quite
a few nasty and malicious people out there and I for one would not support
letting them have the ability to add extra information of any kind to my
public keys.

The more I think about this the less I like it. Seems to be opening a real
can of worms.

-- 
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William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/esecure.html                        
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