[geeks] Three heads

[joshua d boyd]

On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 10:43:28AM +0100, David Cantrell wrote:
> I haven't read up on the details, but I can tell you that two companies I
> have dealt with have been happy to accept PGP-signed documents from me
> instead of bits of paper.  In one case it was an employment contract (not
> my current job) and in the other, an NDA.

Interesting.  There has been some speculation here about exactly how legal
NDAs are.  I think they are probably on firmer ground though that digisigs
are.
 
> Clearly anyone who transmits the passphrase for their private key
> in-the-clear deserves pain.  Consider having to prove the invalidity of
> a signature to be their punishment for the crime of gross stupidity :-)

Yes, but here the invalidity of the signature would effect the reciever
more.  And in the vase of ebay, it effects whoever doesn't want out of the
deal the most, but ebay is the entity that accepted a clear text password
(they don't accept phrases, I think).

And even WRT encryption, how many bits does your web browser support?  If
you are using IE (which I'm sure a lot of your countrymen are) it
shouldn't have more than 64bits (well, it should be, but mickeysoft
supposedly isn't allowed to give it to you due to our brain dead
munitions laws.), and yet the eff has proven that breaking 64bit
encryption is trivial for someone with a little bit of money ($10k a
few years ago, possibly less now).

In general I prefer the US to what I know of the EU politcally speaking,
but when it comes to software and technology, the US can be so pathetic.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd