commercial authecation

[Wei Dai]

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> Keith Henson asked how to find the digital-time-stamp folks,
> Surety Technologies Inc., started by Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta 
> as a spinoff of Bellcore.
> 
> They're now actively in business - there was an article in one of the 
> trade rags that you can get their signature kit for PCs for
> something like $50 with tokens for 50 notarizations.
> Details on their web page.

This technology is very clever and bound to be extremely important.  
But does anyone else think that the price is a little high?  I mean 
the marginal cost can't be more than a few seconds of CPU time for 
each time stamp...

This price tag will temporarily put the time stamp technology out of 
ubiquitous use, where every piece of e-mail, homework paper, Usenet 
post, etc., is automaticly time stamped in a cryptographically secure 
way so that authorship can be asserted and proved.  I think the 
need for proof of authorship is going to become increasingly important 
in an increasingly online world, where copying is so effortless, and 
reputations are based on digital identities.

Wei Dai

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E-mail: Wei Dai <weidai at eskimo.com>   URL: "http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai"
=================== Exponential Increase of Complexity ===================
--> singularity --> atoms --> macromolecules --> biological evolution
--> central nervous systems --> symbolic communication --> homo sapiens
--> digital computers --> internetworking --> close-coupled automation
--> broadband brain-to-net connections --> artificial intelligence
--> distributed consciousness --> group minds --> ? ? ?