I MADE RISKS AGAIN. (Maybe Peter is getting soft in his old age. Or my humor is growing on him!)
http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt
Subject: Risks Digest 24.63
RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Sunday 15 April 2007 Volume 24 : Issue 63
ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
Peter G. Neumann, moderator, chmn ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
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Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 09:50:17 -0400
From: “r @ reinke”
Subject: On “proving NON copyright infringement” (Re: Dellinger, RISKS-24.61)
This sounds like a case for “watermarking”, “stenography”, or a good old fashioned notary?
I am surprised that the concept of a “digital notary” has not taken off for just such situations. (Maybe there’s a web20 application for me make into the next google? I could be rich! And, get a life, instead of reading ezines, blogging, and commenting.) Maybe it has and I just haven’t heard of it!
While the Internet Archive is a good idea, one has to wonder if push came to shove (i.e., think RIAA as the model for a Pyrrhic victory) if that would be acceptable evidence in a legal proceeding.
I’d envision the digital notary as a website that:
CASE#1 — takes an url, “photographs” it, computes a digital signature, saves and encrypted copy, sends you a receipt, and publishes the checksums. The disadvantage is that you have exposed your content on the web.
CASE#2 — takes anything you send it and do the same. The disadvantage is you’ve shown it to a nosy notary like me.
CASE#3 — takes a file from you that you want to keep secret and “seals” it as well in a similar fashion.
[NOTE: I need two key pairs. Call them FERDINAND and REINKE. I’d envision that I’d take my secret treasure map (MAP) to the Lost Treasure of the Sierra Madre and encrypt it with my REINKE private key. WORK1=ENCRYPT(MAP,REINKEPRIVATE) Anyone who had that file could read the map
using REINKEPUBLIC. Then, I’d encrypt it with my FERDINAND private key. WORK2=(WORK1,FERDINANDPRIVATE) Anyone who had this file would know there was a file and it was mine by using FERDINANDPUBLIC. Then, WORK2 goes to the notary. The notary decrypts WORK2 with FERDINANDPUBLIC, and ENCRYPTS with NOTARYPRIVATE and returns it to me. Then, since I am getting old I promptly forget all my passwords, lose the keys, and the LOST TREASURE stays lost.]
The digital notary would seem to be a useful service for such disputes.
Now all I need is a PowerPoint deck and some VCs. And a spare checkbook to put all the money in.
Ferdinand J. Reinke, Kendall Park, NJ 08824
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Reinke Faces Life 