RE: CAPTCHA over smtp (yet another spam solution to discuss)

Here's the end of the message:

> > > > > [Repudiability of authorship is a good thing.]
> > > > For most everything else besides an argument in front of a
> > > > Court, people's perceptions are more important than proofs.
> > >
> > > Precisely.  Imagine your casual email making headline news.  If I
> > > forward a non-signed email to a newspaper, they will yawn.
> >
> > Newspaper reporters are neither technologists, lawyers nor
> > mathematicians.  What you can say is that _should_ yawn, or that you
> > wish they _would_ yawn.  Regardless, they look at content first.  A
> > leaked memo is nothing but a printed document with no signature and
> > is easily forged, but likely to be believed despite that.
>
> We'll have to agree that we disagree.  You are basically saying that
> there is no use in electronic signatures as the number of people
> competent enough to verify them is negligibly small.

That's not at all what I said.  Electronic signatures are useful in
exactly the same places as handwritten signatures:  where you need a
strong identity assertion that is non-repudiable.  That is a small
minority of documents, normally ones that must survive legal challenge.
Besides, I'm not asserting that "repudiability of authorship is a good
thing".  If you intend to repudiate authorship of something, better to
not write it down in the first place.


> I take exception, but do go ahead and prove me wrong.  Forward a
forged
> email to your local newspaper, with, say, $CELEBRITY confessing to
> $FELONY.

Why would I want to libel someone?  Now if I sent a newspaper a
legitimate message I received from someone that although unsigned, still
admitted to serious wrongdoing, it would get a lot of attention.  As it
should.


> [If a mailing list maintainer asserts Seth Goodman sent a message,
> that's at least as good as an electronic signature.  If not better.]

This is a straw man.  A mailing list distribution will generally be
believed to be from the claimed author, as long as there is no reason to
distrust the mailing list itself.  There may be no proof, but that isn't
needed most of the time.

--
Seth Goodman