Robert Costner <pooh@efga.org> writes:
[...] The timestamping is a action that "postmarks" the digitally signed message. Many attorneys feel this is a very good thing, though I have had a hard time justifying the need for this to some technically inclined people.
One use for time-stamping is to allow digital signatures to out-live the validity period of a given public private key pair. If the time-stamped signature shows that the document was signed during the life-time of the signing key pair this provides additional assurance that the signature is still valid despite the fact that the key is now marked as expired, or was say later compromised and revoked. Lots of other uses for time-stamping services also; I thought of a use for them in the eternity service in preventing race conditions. Adam -- Now officially an EAR violation... Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`