Xref: utzoo alt.flame:1635 news.admin:1589
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!ames!hc!oddjob!matt
From: matt@oddjob.UChicago.EDU ("Don't even know my real name!")
Newsgroups: alt.flame,news.admin
Subject: Re: Forgeries
Message-ID: <14358@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Date: 11 Feb 88 20:27:26 GMT
References: <1368@nmtsun.nmt.edu> <1701@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <14347@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> <1709@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Followup-To: alt.flame
Distribution: usa
Organization: Koyaanisqatsi
Lines: 69

Apologies to news.admin which must no longer be intested in this.
I will now resubscribe to alt.flame.  If Greg cares (or dares) to
reply there, I will answer there.  If he responds in news.admin I
will consider that he has implicitly given up and that the subject
is closed.

) matt@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (That's me) writes about Greg Nowak:
) >Gods, what a simpleton!

To which greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gregory Nowak) artfully responds:
) What an asshole!

Well, at least he didn't change the subject.

But back to the topic:
) >Suppose somebody reuses Gene's own numbers?  Which article is the
) >true one?  Whichever one Gene says is real?  Then how is this in any
) >way better than just ASKING THE PURPORTED AUTHOR BY EMAIL whether an
) >article is "genuine"?  It isn't.

) Gene uses different numbers for each article. Then if there's a
) duplicate, he who can supply the factors gets to call the shots as to
) which article is genuine.

You keep changing your method, Greg.  You can't have it all ways at
once.  Last time around you had J. Random Reader asking Gene for the
factors of a number in order to know that an article was valid.  But
the number might have been seen in a forged article.  Now you say
whoever knows the factorization gets to declare what articles are
real, so a forger just has to put in a number whose factorization he
knows, and then say "that was a Gene Smith article".  Sounds stupid?
It is, but that's what you said.

Here comes a shock for you Greg: I know about secure digital
signature systems.  It seems that you don't, because you keep
describing weak, half-assed attempts at one.

) IF you believe the forger can receive Gene's mail AND forge
) outgoing mail under Gene's name, THEN there would be no security to
) merely asking the purported autor by email which articles are
) genuine.

Are you saying that YOU believe the above hypothesis, or that I do?
If the latter, show your evidence.

) But you are ignoring completely the trapdoor function of
) the primes: If Gene 1) uses a different composite for each article 2)
) offers to authenticate by mail, and 3) does not keep files of his
) primes, but only hardcopy that he carries around with him, he's safe.

Oh, crap.  Suppose someone requests authentication and then posts a
back-dated forgery?  Want to ammend your statement again, Greg?

) >And to Greg for showing how blind, kneejerk applications of
) >mathematics can lead to a false sense of security or power.

) Power? Who's talking about power? Only Matt Crawford, who evidently is
) afraid enough of mathematics, for god only knows what reason, to bitch
) about its uses. What is "blind" and "kneejerk" about it? 

Kneejerk is you when you see an article with arithmetic in it and you
say "Oh, hey, higher math!  Hooray for math!" without giving a
pickled neuron's worth of thought to the application itself.

)  What is the basis for your irrational fear of mathematics?

Bring it up again in alt.flame and we'll compare degrees, little boy.

				Matt Crawford