Rights Amplification

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:01:41 +0200,
Marcus Brinkmann at ruhr-uni-bochum de wrote:
> If badges are visible by the mapper, then I think this feature can be
> used to implement a map_lookup function in user space.  This would be
> good news indeed.

On second sight, this appears to be not true.  Even if badges can be
read out by the mapper (which I don't think is true), they could
always be forged.  As long as we don't have any guarantee that the
badge is that of a mapping which is mapped _back to us_, we can't be
sure that the prefix we see is genuinely from us.  A user could create
any badge on a receive point he created himself.

So, badges can only ever be useful to identify receive points, not
send points.  Even if badges where visible by the mapper, they would
be useless.

In fact, I don't see what the badges are all about, anyway.  But then,
I am not here to criticize the badges feature.  The only thing that is
relevant to point out here is that the badges feature won't do
anything for us that we didn't took for granted before (ie, that we
can somehow identify the sender of a message).

I certainly am interested to learn more about the badges feature,
particularly why it was introduced at all.  But it doesn't seem to be
of any concern to the actual issue at hand.

Thanks,
Marcus