re: #132 Charles Johnson

I know - if sending unencrypted email to an unknown third party isn’t “compromised,” what exactly would be?

Which hints at a fundamental problem for our anarchist buddies: the whole of public key cryptography is based on chains of trust back to Certificate Authorities. Literal capital-A Authorities who, directly or indirectly, determine your online identity. No authorities, no identity confirmation, and hey, “I’m Greenwald/Spartacus!”

And when I have to get for-reals PKI certs, I have to prove I’m me with government-issued identification. Which isn’t a problem if you’re not an anarchist. If you are an anarchist, I suppose The Market will punish private Certificate Authorities that don’t properly manage identities, maybe, somehow. Unless they compromise your identity secretly, of course.

If you don’t have this sort of infrastructure, who gives a shit how many bits your key is if you have no idea who you’re really sending things to.