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Re: [arin-announce] ARIN Resource Certification Update


From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 10:35:51 -0500

On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 11:57:57 -0200, Carlos Martinez-Cagnazzo said:
What I just don't get if, we as a society, have created institutions
we trust with our *money* (AKA banks), why there can't be institutions
we trust with our crypto keys. I know that banks sometimes fail, and
yes, probably "crypto banks" will sometimes fail as well, but on the
whole, the failure rate of trusted institutions can be quite low,
acceptably low.

There's a big difference.  If a bank screws up and loses $5,000 of my money, I
can (at least potentially) sue them and recover $5,000 which is  pretty much
identical to the $5,000 I lost.  If a key escrow company loses my private key,
getting back an identical private key is exactly the *wrong* solution.

Crypto keys are not interchangable like dollar bills.

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