PF> spend on software patents. I don't, and don't mean to say that _he_ PF> goes around stealing ideas from other people and patenting them.) PF> PF> How do I do this and protect myself from the people who do have the PF> money to go through the intellectual property courthouse game? IANAL, but... Create a detatched signature certificate of your idea, and post =that= here. Get some of us to sign it I, _______, a resident of _______ County, __________, do hereby attest that I recieved the above certificate on _____ ___,1995. [plaintext for non-crypto-aware folks] and email to you. Also, make two hard copies, including hard copies of our notarizations you recieve back . Put one of them in an envelope with a 3.5" floppy of everything, and address the =back= to yourself. Go into the post office, and ask the clerk to hand-cancel the envelope, so that the cancellation goes half across the flap and the rest on the envelope. When you get this from yourself in the mail, you put it in your safety- deposit box or equivalent. This way, when you open the envelope in the presence of the Judge/Jury you have the word of the US Postal Service that you had X idea on Y date, not to mention the corroborrating e-signatures. If Z were to claim authorship, you could ask Z to prove it by forging your signature on another document. This could go a long way toward proving the value of PGP signature to the Unwashed Masses, =and= illustrate the danger of GACK + corrupt gummit agent (in the light of the Ruby Ridge and Waco hearings, people will be =quite= sensitive to the fact that agents can and do abuse their power). In fact, the ability for us to be able to attest to your possession of Document X on Date Y, without any of us ever seeing X itself, is one of the most powerful uses of digital signatures. I can see Phil Z. being called as an expert witness, to establish the mechanism involved. Joe Sixpack needs to hear Dan Blather mention this on the Evening News. OK, not Blather, but Koppel would do it. Maybe even John Stossel on 20/20. This is what we need to be pushing to the Luddite crowd: The very new technology that frightens them, because they percieve it as out of their control, brings with it new means for people to take control. Even if you lost your case on some other grounds, it would be one of the best PR bits for PGP I can think of. * Don't say "Gun Control", it's "Victim Disarmament". --- * Monster@FAmend.Com *