On Mon, Sep 17, 2001 at 08:05:04AM +0000, Redvers Davies wrote:
> > No, you're getting the wrong end of the stick. The point is that if I get
> > something with your signature on it, and I've said that I trust you to do
> > the verification correctly, you may know what the Mickey Mouse in the UID
> > subpacket means (that eg, it means Evil Dave) and you've verified that
> > Evil Dave does, in fact, hold the corresponding secret key, so that when
> > you send messages encrypted with that key it will be evil dave who decrypts
> > them. However, that "Mickey Mouse" means nothing to me.
[snip]
> There is of course the case of the person with the same name who wishes to
> intercept somebody elses email with the same name. The name in the uid
> matches, but the email address does not.
This is true, but the attack is rather more subtle.
Why is a name better than an email address, surely an email address is better
at uniquely identifying the name. Suppose I put an identity:
Matthew Byng-Maddick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
as well as the standard
Matthew Byng-Maddick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Now suppose that they've never seen anything of yours, and say "Oh well, it's
his key, both are UID "Matthew Byng-Maddick", I've checked his passport, I'll
sign them both.
Do you see the problem now?
MBM
--
Matthew Byng-Maddick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://colondot.net/
