At 11:06 AM 11/22/2001 -0800, you wrote:
Time Magazine, November 26, 2001:
Denning's pioneering a new field she calls geo-encryption. Working with industry, Denning has developed a way to keep information undecipherable until it reaches its location, as determined by GPS satellites. Move studios, for example, have been afraid to release films digitally for the same reasons record companies hate Napster: once loose on the Internet, there's little to stop someone from posting the latest blockbuster DVD on the Web for all to see and download. With Denning's system, however, only subscribers in specified locations -- such as movie theaters -- would be able to unscramble the data. The technology works as well for national security as it does for Harry Potter. Coded messages that the State Department sends to its embassies, for example, could only be deciphered in the embassy buildings themselves, greatly reducing the risk of interception.
For now, Denning says, terrorists "may want to bring down the power grid or the finance system, but it's still easier to blow up a building." If she's right, it's due in large part to her.
I believe several patents have been filed for something along this line (e.g. tamper resistant GPS-smart cards). Mostly to enable casino to satisfy state regulators that their clients are in permitted geographic locales. steve