
Public key as Identities in real world - nivesh2
https://medium.com/@nivesh/public-key-as-identities-d87942f385b9
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ColinWright
What happens if you need to repudiate a particular public-key? If the Public
Key is tied to your identity then you have a real problem.

Your identity is one thing, you ability to authenticate is another, your
ability to encrypt is another still. Experience in other fields tells us that
conflating different things and purposes into a single thing is generally a
very bad move.

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nivesh2
well, the public is not tied to ones identity. It is just a theoretical
concept that public key acts as an actor. Besides, the thing what you are
talking about is related to anonymity which is a different concept.

~~~
ColinWright
> well, the public is not tied to ones identity.

And yet your title is "Public key as Identities"

> It is just a theoretical concept that public key acts as an actor.

And yet you are talking specifically about using a Public Key in practice.

> ... the thing what you are talking about is related to anonymity which is a
> different concept.

None of what I've said is related to anonymity.

Your title is "Public key as Identities", which oddly enough leads me to
believe that you are talking about using a public key as an identity. But if
you do that, then your identity is the public key, because that's what you've
just set up.

But keys get compromised, and so it is occasionally critical to be able to
repudiate a key. But if it's your identity, you can't do that.

In short, everything in that article seems to be vague speculation without
addressing some very real problems with the concept it's espousing.

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nivesh2
If you know private key that corresponds to a public key. Then you can sign
messages using private key and publish it onto the network, but what you are
basically doing is making statements on behalf of that public key.

