Subject: Re: Non-Repudiation (Definitions)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 15:18:55 EDT

Dear Aram,

Steve is dead on when describing the state of definitions/terms of art within 
the technical community folks that have been engaged in PKI work for some 
time.

Unfortunately even within (ANSI X9F5- Financial 
Institutions/Security/Certificate Policies and Practices) which I cochair, 
other definitions leaking in occasionally create problems for us.  If it is 
confusing for us it is deadly when our documents or discussions leave the 
committees or forums and reach the eyes of others.

Even worse than accidental misunderstandings are the intentional blurrings...
Many promulgators of lighterweight authentication technology have been 
intentionally free riding on the presumptive goodness of "digital signatures" 
by using "electronic signatures" or "electronic authentication" as a direct 
substitute or worse yet applying the term "digital signature" to cover  
"digitized signatures."

It is very important for us to clearly define terms and stick to them or we 
end up with laws like the recent California authentication horror that was 
just passed.

I myself have created some extremely fast and scalable authentication 
technology, but at least have the honesty to put the term "lightweight" in 
front of the descriptions.

I hope my former colleagues at ABAecom were able to get the keys from the 
root to you and your people.

I hope to be able to demo some of our new stuff for you very soon.

Good luck...kawika...

PS.  Call if you need anything...301 332 5224
PPS.  I would encourage you to look at the work that x9f5 is doing.