Re: [9fans] Sources Gone?

["Brian L. Stuart" <blstuart@bellsouth.net>]

> information can't leak in principle, but root scores are dangerous, which
> is why open-access venti servers are problematic - if such a score
> *does* happen to leak, then unconditional access to all your data has
> also leaked.

If I understand correctly, this line of discussion
is primarily motivated by the idea of an open-access
venti server.  And it looks to me like we're basically
getting to the point where we're recognizing that
to make that happen would require some very deep
changes to venti and it's underlying concepts.  It
sounds like a perfect place for an intermediary
server.  The venti itself doesn't need to be open-
access if there's a proxy server that is.  The proxy
can communicate with the clients using any unique
identifying key.  It doesn't have to be the same as
the score the back-end venti uses.  And the proxy
can do any kind of authentication you want it to.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the problem we're trying
to solve, but if the objective is to provide open
venti access but the necessary protection mechanisms
really belong elsewhere, it seems reasonable to
create the elsewhere and not incorporate them into
venti.

Just a free observation (and worth every penny).

BLS