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Keith Henson asked how to find the digital-time-stamp folks, Surety Technologies Inc., started by Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta as a spinoff of Bellcore.
They're now actively in business - there was an article in one of the trade rags that you can get their signature kit for PCs for something like $50 with tokens for 50 notarizations. Details on their web page.
This technology is very clever and bound to be extremely important. But does anyone else think that the price is a little high? I mean the marginal cost can't be more than a few seconds of CPU time for each time stamp... This price tag will temporarily put the time stamp technology out of ubiquitous use, where every piece of e-mail, homework paper, Usenet post, etc., is automaticly time stamped in a cryptographically secure way so that authorship can be asserted and proved. I think the need for proof of authorship is going to become increasingly important in an increasingly online world, where copying is so effortless, and reputations are based on digital identities. Wei Dai -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLzMXKDl0sXKgdnV5AQFA+gP/XcrjAncBMVqocpXYfAaBR7RJ2PDR4ZF/ TEgCPcPM7we4eoR5w++7V+jsBhtNRSng5OUCeKQWSCU8BDnkUXuQNpQ8+fNKciMS RQWn1PBx4carczVOJoNyR1U8Rxu9tIH0Drh/NIZJ4324azpMOd8ysVFkJ4QODCPu 07Bf7pZ36c0= =tAcu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- E-mail: Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com> URL: "http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai" =================== Exponential Increase of Complexity =================== --> singularity --> atoms --> macromolecules --> biological evolution --> central nervous systems --> symbolic communication --> homo sapiens --> digital computers --> internetworking --> close-coupled automation --> broadband brain-to-net connections --> artificial intelligence --> distributed consciousness --> group minds --> ? ? ?