>No, this is a common fallacy of "identity-based encryption". Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that IBE is slightly weaker but more useful than the protocol I described because IBE places some trust in the PKG. This trust allows IBE to directly connect identities to cryptographic identities. If a fallacy exists it is in the protocol I described but not in IBE.
>No human user thinks in terms of contacting cryptographic identities. There is >some *implicit* binding here between your contact's idea of who they think you >are, vs the cryptographic identifier/key/string that their software is >actually performing the cryptographic protocol with. I agree with what you argue here. I also agree that the system I described does not work for most typical communication use cases but the question was: >"if it can be possible, _at least theoretically_, to have a MITM-secure >internet channel without the use of PKI". The answer is both yes it is theoretically possible and yes there are atypical but real use cases. Am I correct in my understanding that .onion addresses work this way? I would also expect that this could be useful for: 1. self-organizing sensor networks, 2. pseudonymous internet forums (user A wants to send a message to the user that write post X, user A doesn't care about that user's 'true name'), 3. and cryptocurrency transactions. On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 5:57 PM, Ximin Luo <[email protected]> wrote: > On 29/11/15 23:53, Ethan Heilman wrote: >> It is possible If your identity in a system is directly tied to your >> public key or some provable secret. >> > > No, this is a common fallacy of "identity-based encryption". No human user > thinks in terms of contacting cryptographic identities. There is some > *implicit* binding here between your contact's idea of who they think you > are, vs the cryptographic identifier/key/string that their software is > actually performing the cryptographic protocol with. > > One may ignore the problem, push it away to another layer, and/or refuse to > use language that allows one to think clearly about the real issues involved; > but this does not mean that such issues do not exist. > > X > > -- > GPG: 4096R/1318EFAC5FBBDBCE > git://github.com/infinity0/pubkeys.git _______________________________________________ Messaging mailing list [email protected] https://moderncrypto.org/mailman/listinfo/messaging
