To: cypherpunks@toad.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- tcmay@netcom.com wrote:
Their work involves having the user compute a hash of the document he wishes to be stamped and sending the hash to them, where they merge this hash with other hashes (and all previous hashes, via a tree system) and then they *publish* the resultant hash in a very public and hard-to-alter forum, such as in an ad in the Sunday New York Times.
Can you give a more detailed description of the system? The specific question I have is how exactly does a third party know that a time stamp is not forged? What algorithm or protocol does he use? If there is more than one time stamping service and if they use different systems, how do the courts know which ones to accept? Wei Dai cc: TCMAY@NETCOM.COM in 0009 on ESKIMO -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLlad5Tl0sXKgdnV5AQFjXQQAuIU+eb/yLxrhXWwDwOfuK/rKi7Tq+Pz8 3FFe+BD6ZB+nLrXPnb5geNQuVFQX3K4cW1JEm4dVPvo5DDXFZaM/sH5g2XySrjaz 9FeeTa4wYtEydhJXAlzpENuWxyXTn+NIQov+e5kKQybKgOW5AglwnMexd+ls7o1U juUxkbqdSZY= =FyNB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- PGP Public Key available