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uselessness of names
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At 02:36 PM 3/30/98 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>Saying "my key is my name" is certainly nonsense, but saying "the
>entity (be it person, group, or alien from Alpha Centauri) that we
>will allow to log on to this computer is the entity that knows the
>private key associated with this public key, and can prove it by
>signing something" is perfectly sensible. No need for names, or even
>for anything other than a simple operational definition.
>
>After all, names are worthless. People change them, people have more
>than one of them, they aren't unique, and they aren't even
>interesting.
>
>But we've gone over this about two thousand times, haven't we?
Of course we have, but my informal sample suggests that the word has gotten
out to only a tiny fraction of the world. It will be a while before the
rest of the world figures out that names were made non-functional many years
ago (when IBM &c. started moving employees around in the 1950's?). The
signs of that fact show up in the press occasionally (e.g., "True Name
Fraud") but it's taking a while for people to figure it out. The Internet
and national phone books are helping get the idea across.
- Carl
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