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Jon Staab
Mar 14, 2025
131701f · Mar 14, 2025

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04.md

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Abstract

Authenticity: messages and messengers

Messengers act on delegated authority, not their own. In order to prove the authenticity of the message they carry, they must provide a credential along with it - a forgery can lead to dire consequences. As frequency of communication has increased, we have become too trusting of the messenger. We must learn to validate the provenance of messages, and in so doing preserve our own ability to speak.

Outline

Byzantine generals problem

  • Improved (though not solved) by message authentication - use example of signet rings and wax seals

Authentication

  • When we speak in nature, our words are self-authenticating
  • When we speak at a distance (either physically or digitally), our words need to be authenticated within some other system
  • naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzp978pfzrv6n9xhq5tvenl9e74pklmskh4xw6vxxyp3j8qkke3cezqy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uq32amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7tcpr9mhxue69uhkscnj9e3k7unpvdkx2tnnda3kjctv9uq3samnwvaz7tmxv93xjctw9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hszxthwden5te0dp38ytnrdaexzcmvv5h8xmmrd9skctcqp5cnwdp3xyunwwf4xcmnsdgada2ng
  • This allows us to choose our hosts without making other people trust them (solution to previous chapter)