Author: Eric Voskuil 2015-02-06 01:05:23
Published on: 2015-02-06T01:05:23+00:00
In an email exchange, Paul Puey suggested that the trust can be considered bootstrapped by visual verification of the address prefix. However, manual verification doesn't fix the attack where someone can disrupt business by causing money to be burned. Eric Voskuil proposed using encryption with forward secrecy, but the problem is verifying ownership of the public key. A MITM can substitute the key. If there is no verifiable identity associated with the public key (PKI/WoT), a shared secret (such as a secret phrase) is needed, but establishing that secret over a public channel is challenging. Bootstrapping a private session over an untrusted network using a trusted public key (PKI/WoT) can work, but the process is subject to attack at the CA. WoT is not subject to a CA attack because it's decentralized, but it's also not sufficiently deployed for some scenarios.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T16:36:30.188177+00:00