Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 19:51:24 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801090051.TAA14658@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: Re: knowledge and belief X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199801082224.RAA07004@tune.cs.columbia.edu> (jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR) Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1660 X-From-Space-Date: Thu Jan 8 19:51:24 1998 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 19:16:23 -0300 >From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" > >But I still don't understand the game (is it a game?). What does >PGP stand for? What is the objective? Is there a winner (the one >who first guesses which key belongs to each participant?) Or is >it a cooperative effort, everyone wins when all the keys found >their owner? How can the first person to sign a key tell who the >key belongs to? Woops, sorry. PGP is a system for encrypting data, using public key cryptography. If you know my public key (it's kept in public repositories, or I can mail it to you, etc), you can send me email that only I can read (apart from cracking, etc, which is computationally infeasible, or assorted carelessness on my part or whatever). The public nature of my key doesn't compromise the data you send though; only the *private* key (which I alone have, hopefully) can decrypt stuff encrypted with the public key. So it's important to know that "my" key is really mine and not someone else pretending to be me, or the pretender will be able to read it, not me. Similarly, you could, with my public key, verify that it was I (or someone who had access to my private key and passphrase, which should be nobody) who wrote this letter, and nobody else. ~mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQB1AwUBNLVtsMppGeTJXWZ9AQFjBgL/cO8CHbtSyRhQKIGH738oA1pKszlVryE8 RwKBr1C1jTifC2lR7s6y7D25Dea3lRitvmaUFVmFbvkGeFPM8iUBi9CVdWktHpd0 hWuBkSaN/6OA5RQ3qpCLrOiYvRbP8gYn =v+lQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----