update changelog to reflect the new monkeysphere user configuration location

[monkeysphere.git] / website / why.mdwn

diff --git a/website/why.mdwn b/website/why.mdwn
index 272c48c08a39dc238d09fa40c096b5df3b0b3d36..336643988abae643b51c514f079194884fb67cc8 100644 (file)
--- a/website/why.mdwn
+++ b/website/why.mdwn
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [[meta title="Why should you be interested in the MonkeySphere?"]]
 
-# Why should you be interested in the MonkeySphere? #
+[[toc ]]
 
 ## As an `ssh` user ##
 
@@ -29,7 +29,9 @@ Have you ever wished you could phase out an old key and start using a
 new one without having to comb through every single account you have
 ever connected to?
 
-## As an system administrator ##
+[Get started with the monkeysphere as a user!](/getting-started-user)
+
+## As a system administrator ##
 
 As a system administrator, have you ever tried to re-key an SSH
 server?  How did you communicate the key change to your users?  How
@@ -43,6 +45,8 @@ Have you ever wanted to be able to add or revoke the ability of a
 user's key to authenticate across an entire infrastructure you manage,
 without touching each host by hand?
 
+[Get started with the monkeysphere as an administrator!](/getting-started-admin)
+
 ## What's the connection? ##
 
 All of these issues are related to a lack of a [Public Key
@@ -130,3 +134,44 @@ Charles) have certified the key.  This is far more useful information
 than the current infrastructure allows, and is more meaningful to
 actual humans using these tools than some message like "Certified by
 GloboTrust".
+
+## Philosophy ##
+
+Humans (and
+[monkeys](http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-17/mi-17.html))
+have the innate capacity to keep track of the identities of only a
+finite number of people. After our social sphere exceeds several dozen
+or several hundred (depending on the individual), our ability to
+remember and distinguish people begins to break down. In other words,
+at a certain point, we can't know for sure that the person we ran into
+in the produce aisle really is the same person who we met at the party
+last week.
+
+For most of us, this limitation has not posed much of a problem in our
+daily, off-line lives.  With the Internet, however, we have an ability
+to interact with vastly larger numbers of people than we had
+before. In addition, on the Internet we lose many of our tricks for
+remembering and identifying people (physical characteristics, sound of
+the voice, etc.).
+
+Fortunately, with online communications we have easy access to tools
+that can help us navigate these problems.
+[OpenPGP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openpgp) (a cryptographic
+protocol commonly used for sending signed and encrypted email
+messages) is one such tool. In its simplest form, it allows us to
+sign our communication in such a way that the recipient can verify the
+sender.
+
+OpenPGP goes beyond this simple use to implement a feature known as
+the [web of trust](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust). The web
+of trust allows people who have never met in person to communicate
+with a reasonable degree of certainty that they are who they say they
+are. It works like this: Person A trusts Person B. Person B verifies
+Person C's identity.  Then, Person A can verify Person C's identity
+because of their trust of Person B.
+
+The Monkeyshpere's broader goals are to extend the use of OpenPGP from
+email communications to other activities, such as:
+
+ * conclusively identifying the remote server in a remote login session
+ * granting access to servers to people we've never directly met