[Pythonmac-SIG] Package Manager idea, adding a URL scheme

[Bob Ippolito]

On Friday, Oct 3, 2003, at 18:32 America/New_York, Jack Jansen wrote:

>
> On 3-okt-03, at 23:21, Glenn Andreas wrote:
>> I'm clearly missing something here, because if we have the databases 
>> come from a trusted source (python.org) using SSL,
>
> This is what you're missing: we cannot use SSL to transfer the 
> database, because
> core Python has no SSL support.
>
> We expect the end user to trust a number of entities (because a hole 
> in any
> of these would make the whole excercise pointless):
> 1. Apple, anyone with admin access to their machine, and all the other
>    parties involved with local infrastructure.
> 2. The Python maintainers.
> 3. The installed Python distribution, including PackMan (either because
>    it was Apple-provided, or because people checked the signature on 
> the
>    website download page).
> 4. The scapegoat.
> 5. Anyone the scapegoat trusts wrt. web distribution (their webhoster, 
> the
>    key-signing Trusted Third Party).

When using PGP or something like it to sign the package list, #5 can be 
eliminated, because the scapegoat is the key signing entity and the web 
hoster does not have the private key.

-bob