From: Niall O Broin (niall at domain linux.ie)
Date: Wed 23 May 2001 - 12:51:01 IST
On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 09:02:34AM +0100, kevin lyda wrote:
> On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 12:58:06AM +0100, Niall O Broin wrote:
> > What do you mean exactly ? Is this a bit like the captain and the XO on the
> > submarine with the keys to the nuclear missile launcher i.e. do two people
> > have to agree to decrypt ? If so, who gets to get the plain text ?
>
> the two people sitting at the terminal. the files in question contain
> valuable data, and it would seem wise to me to offer some security in
> handling them. not just for the people you purchased the files, but
> for those that handle them on their behalf.
OK - so it is just like the captain and the XO on the submarine. The famous
Niall O Broin instant analysis (TM, Copyright) indicates that what is
needed here is not multiple keys, but multiple passphrases i.e. when a key
is generated not just one passphrase is asked for, but an option to enter n
passphrases and an m, which is the number of passphrases required to decode.
There you go - a requirements spec. in a couple of lines. Functional specs.,
coding, testing etc. are left as exercises for the reader :-)
> and while it's quite complex technically, it's thanks to the scenario
> you describe that it's easy to ask for.
I know buggery about the internals of gpg BUT it certainly sounds a little
complex, alright.
Niall
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.6 : Thu 06 Feb 2003 - 13:10:26 GMT