PGP: sequencing messages

[Trevor Smith]

On Wed, 5 Apr 2000 07:53:04 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:

>Wednesday, April 05, 2000, 7:30:58 AM, Trevor wrote:
>> 1. You won't see it unless you Cc: or Bcc: yourself since it is added
>> by your mail server and not your personal email client.
>
>    Which has been reported, by me, several times, as a /BUG/ in PMMail.

I think we're referring to different things. How is this a bug? Are
you saying that some RFC says the *client* is supposed to add the
unique message id instead of the *server*?

>> Statistically speaking, no two PGP signatures can EVER be identical
>> -- even for identical text.
>
>    Welllll, people who say "statistically speaking" rarely speak statistics.
>Statistically speaking it /IS/ possible for two sigs to be identical.
>However, the chances of that happening are ~377^52.  So a more accurate term
>is that it is so statistically improbable that it is effectively impossible.
>But saying that it /is/ impossible is a fallacy, even speaking statistics.

Sorry, you're right, my language was flawed. I should have just said,
"it is *EXTREMELY* unlikely that two PGP signatures will ever be the
same -- even for identical text."

Thanks for providing the actual probability though. BTW, my
calculator can't process 377^52 (can yours?). *That's* how unlikely
it is that two PGP signatures would ever match. The chances are 1 in
<a # so big it can't be displayed on my calculator screen, even as an
exponent>.


-- 
 Trevor Smith          |          trevor@haligonian.com
 PGP public key available at: www.haligonian.com/trevor

PGP Public Key Fingerprint= A68C C4EC C163 5C0A 6CFA  671F 05D4 0B30 318B AFD6