That remains a silly claim no matter how many times it's repeated. All that is required for secure transport is a two key pairs. I need not have any idea who th

That remains a silly claim no matter how many times it's repeated. All that is required for secure transport is a two key pairs. I need not have any idea who the other party is, but I can be certain that I have received exactly what that party transmitted and that no other party could read it in transit (remember, even the sender can't recover the original plaintext in this case if he's lost it). It's pretty basic cryptographic theory and I'm not sure how such a fundamental misunderstanding became so widespread. A secure channel need not tell me anything about the probity of the other participant. (In basic terms, even if I'm being phished, there's an advantage in keeping some other criminal syndicate from also reading my information.) "But you don't know with whom you are actually communicating to begin with!" you may say. Agreed, and not cared about. I'm communicating with someone. Step 1 is to make sure that whoever that person is, she and I share a secure communication channel that no other person can alter or intercept. At that point she and I can negotiate authenticity. Solve the simple problem first, and the harder problem becomes easier.