coming soon: secure digit

[Wei Dai]

To: cypherpunks at toad.com

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tcmay at 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 at NETCOM.COM in 0009 on ESKIMO

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