Re: Distributed Capabilities

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:05:09 -0500,
"Jonathan S. Shapiro" <address@hidden> wrote:
> > However, in practice, as Marcus said, everyone is free to run whatever
> > OS they may like.
> 
> Not necessarily. This is an example of one of the *valid* uses of remote
> attestation. Attestation gives me the ability to form my associations
> with other people selectively. The right to assemble selectively is a
> fundamental freedom that is currently not supported in computational
> systems.

I don't buy it.  For the possibility to assemble selectively, you only
need secrecy and the ability to establish an identity.  For this,
normal public key authentication is sufficient.  Control over
behaviour of others is orthogonal to identification and secrecy.  To
push your analogy further, in a modern society only the state has the
executional power to control others (except for emergencies,
parentship etc).

Thanks,
Marcus