[MUD-Dev] strong encryption for authentication

[Tamzen Cannoy]

At 8:16 PM -0700 7/10/01, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> So I'd pose this question, to which I would honestly like to hear
> the answer: what *possible* reason have you identified as a
> compelling justification for encryption? Because I really couldn't
> think of anything. Did I miss something?

Sure. I personally think it's a good thing to get tons more
encrypted traffic on the net to mess up the NSA's data sweeping.

We had a very real reason to once. We ran a TinyMuck inside Digital
Equipment in 1990-1994 or so. Personal use of computer resources was
encouraged as long as it didn't interfere with your work.

We ran this in the building with some of the central networking
development groups and there were network sniffers all over the
place. Since we had a hand written client built to run on DECNet we
encrypted it so that packets containing online sexual encounters and
such were protected from the sniffers. A very real need for
encryption.

I agree that in general, encryption is currently too diffucult to
use for most people. But if it were merely checking an option in all
the apps I run over the net, I'd use it for everything by
default. Encryption is your friend.

--


Tamzen
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