[OTR-users] jabber jingle

CLAY SHENTRUP CLAY at BROKENLADDER.COM
Sat Dec 17 05:51:58 EST 2005


> Lets assume Bob is communicates with Trent.  Alice is an evil
>
oppressive government to records all communications.  Trent later
> becomes a traitor and turns over his his session keys to Alice.  There
> is no way that alice can directly prove that the session key was the
> one bob agreed to, however the session key successfully converts the
> data alice captured into something that sounds  a lot like bob.  The
> probability of Trent finding some key which decrypts to something that
> sounds like bob talking about something other than what he actually
> said is infinitesimal


Okay, you're throwing me with your misuse of Alice here.  But if Alice
indeed observed all of the communication, even if it was text, then they
would see the encrypted messages coming from Bob, as well as his signed DH
half key.  If Trent could produce a private DH value that in conjunction
with Bob's public key would produce a key that Trent has, which would
decrypt the recorded message to something recognizable, then I think that
would give Alice (or Mr. Charrington if you like) the means to know prove
that Bob said what he said.  I think the plausible deniability is only if
you weren't observed in the act.

In the limit, your example relies upon recognizing Bob's voice, which would
give the same certainty that it was Bob, even if the message was never
ecrypted.  So what does OTR have to do with that?


--
Here's an idea that would save the world:  I think, we should get some large
magnetic rings and attach wires to them such that one wire is attached to
each of a set of two magnetic rings in opposing polarity. Then, we should
dig up everyone that was a great thinker of the enlightenment and dip them
in molten iron. After that, following Maxwell's famous equations, we'll just
tell that girl and all the other stupids that we prayed for it to happen and
jebus made it work, we'll put all of our iron covered thinkers of the
enlightenment back in their graves inside the magnetic rings. Once there,
the combined speed with which they turn will be enough to ween us off fossil
fuels.

—NATE OBORNY, TALKING ABOUT A GIRL WHO DOESN'T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING
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