SEIS: RE: Certificates, Directories, and Distinguished Names

["Bob Jueneman" <BJUENEMAN@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Tony is right on with respect to the concerns that some individuals 
will have with respect to technology.  When ATMs and direct deposit
technology first emerged, it was the accountants and finance managers
within some companies that were the most doubting Thomas's.

Certainly as we get closer to Y2K, there are a fairly sizeable number
of people who are buying gold and platinum double eagles rather
than trusting a fractional deposit banking system, and who can say
at this time whether they are right or wrong.

I spend a fairly significant amount of my time engaging with various 
attorneys and legislators and debating the relative risk/benefit
of PKI in general, and the risk of a compromise of Grandma's 
private key in particular, and I can testify that the is a large portion 
of the highly influential public that is not yet sold.

Of course from my perspective they are straining at gnats and 
swallowing camels -- they are concerned that a virus could 
somehow compromise a private key, but at the same time they 
willing allow a typed document on a letterhead to serve as a legally 
binding signature, not to mention a faxed signature or simply a fax
with an automatically inserted origination code on the top of the 
page.

They will undoubtedly come around -- I remember with some shock 
the first time I went to a legal meeting and all of the attorneys had
laptops and there were not legal pads in sight.

But until that day comes, they are the folks that are writing the laws, 
not us, much as I try to play gadfly in that community.

Bob



>--- Message on the SEIS mailing list (list@seis.nc-forum.com)
>
>Just a General Observation:
>
>The "pack-it-in-the-cert"/"pack-it-in-a-directory" debate seems to
>parallel, in some ways, the recent thread on Anders' "CyberPhone"
>approach to outsourcing one's private-key handling.
>
>And "convenience," indeed, can only be ignored at one's peril (in
>a business model, at least:)
>
>Over all of this, I cannot help but be reminded of those who lived
>through the Great Depression, and to this day feel uncomfortable
>placing their money in banks.  They will insist upon dealing in
>"cash", the kind they can stuff under their mattress, or bury in
>a steel box in the backyard.  Foolish at it may seem to most, they
>insist upon being the final arbiters of their security/destiny,
>however ill-equipped to the task they may be.
>
>No amount of argument that, statistically, their money would be
>safer in a bank, or as bits-on-a-disk, will dissuade them.
>(And who knows, in the long run, if they will be wrong or right?)
>
>Must we promote a world so hostile to these individualists (they
>are many, if not majority) that they become shut-out of the future
>benefits that PKIs may afford?
>
>Is this concern not a silent undercurrent to many of these debates?
>
>___tony___
>
>
>
>Tony Bartoletti                                             LL
>Center for Information Operations and Assurance          LL LL
>Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory                LL LL LL
>PO Box 808, L - 303                                   LL LL LL
>Livermore, CA 94551-9900                              LL LL LLLLLLLL
>phone: 925-422-3881   fax: 925-423-8002               LL LLLLLLLL
>email: azb@llnl.gov                                   LLLLLLLL
>
>
>----------------- SEIS mailing list (list@seis.nc-forum.com)
>Info about this list: http://www.nc-forum.com/seis 
>SEIS Contact: info@seis.se 
>