Tim May contributed a fascinating bit of thinking on timed-release messages, including this:

...

"Aha!," I hear you exclaim, "Tim's scheme depends solely on the trust of these escrow agents, and that's no different from depositing a sealed envelope with your friendly lawyer and asking him to promise not to peek."

Well, yes, Tim, but what about the MTBF rating fo disk drives and or other storage media? Any such message would also be relying on the turst that the disk it's stored on, the mail system and or the organization it was sent to for storgae are still going to be around. Now, if there were dedicated places where such t-r crypto msgs could be stored, such as a digital "bank" (where they would no doubt charge a storage fee, possibly necessitating that each such msg would be able to "peel off" digicredits from itself every year to guarantee paying for it's own upkeep in case you were no longer aropund to sign checks), the question of whether or not it would BE there in 30 years might be moot, but that's a whole 'nother discussion. Still, I find your idea very compelling and full of merit. dave