Digital Notary System [looks like a good thing to look at djf]

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Posted-Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 22:11:20 -0400
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 21:12:39 -0500
From: shaynes () research westlaw com (Steve Haynes)
To: farber () central cis upenn edu
Subject: Digital Notary System


Dave -


I don't recall if digital time-stamping, Digital Notary, or
Surety Technologies have been profiled to IPers before, but
having just learned of their Web Home Page, I thought I'd pass
this along.  The Digital Notary System is one of the more
exciting cryptography-related technologies to come along in
recent years.  (I have no financial interest in Surety or its
products.)


Surety's homepage is at http://www.surety.com.


To quote from part of Surety's promotional material:


        "Surety's product, the Digital Notary (tm) System, is an
        inexpensive, easy and cryptographically secure system for
        electronically certifying digital documents and electronic
        records, unimpeachably proving when they were created. The
        Digital Notary System combines coordinating servers with a
        software program that resides on your desktop personal
        computer or server. Ironically, the system is so secure that
        it can use the Internet -- with its cost and accessibility
        advantages -- as a service delivery vehicle.


        "In response to your command or a trigger in an application,
        the Digital Notary software creates a unique "digital
        fingerprint," or hash code, for a digital document or
        record. The software then sends the fingerprint to a Digital
        Notary coordinating server , via your Internet connection, a
        leased line or dial-up connection. The coordinating server
        mathematically combines the fingerprint with other
        fingerprints coming in at the same time, into "trees" that
        close at one-second intervals.  Each tree has its own hash
        code, which becomes part of a permanent Universal Validation
        Record. The Universal Validation Record links each second in
        time with its hash code, which is mathematical shorthand for
        the fingerprints of all the documents received during that
        second.


        "The coordinating server then electronically transmits back
        to your computer the verifying data necessary to validate
        your document. This information includes a timestamp that,
        when mathematically combined by the Digital Notary software
        with your document's digital fingerprint, links your
        document to the Universal Validation Record. Your Digital
        Notary software then issues a certificate for the document
        and stores it in a local Digital Notary database or other
        database you designate. The entire certification process
        takes only seconds."


Most important, however, a personal version of Digital Notary has
now become available, so that individuals who may not have
corporate or institutional access to the service can nonetheless
digitally time-stamp their documents and secure whatever rights
might be associated with a precise authentication of _when_ and
_in what form_ a document first existed:


        "To introduce the Digital Notary System to individuals, a
        special single-user version, called the Personal Edition for
        Windows, is available over the Internet via FTP to
        ftp.surety.com or by downloading it from Surety's World Wide
        Web storefront, http://www.surety.com (Web server available
        online as of February 1). The Personal Edition costs $49,
        which includes account set-up, Personal Edition software,
        and 50 certificates. Users can order additional Digital
        Notary certificates over the Internet at a price of $37.50
        for 50 certificates. A Personal Edition for Sun SPARC will
        be available within 45 days."


Well, the Personal Edition is indeed available (Item #3, "New
Account Center" on Surety's homepage).  Several possible uses
occur to me:


1.      Scholarly research data or papers can be time-stamped by
        their authors to establish priority of discovery/research/
        writing.


2.      Those who might witness wrongdoing or fraud (and especially
        who might have an opportunity to a claim under one or
        another Whistleblower law) could encrypt an account of the
        matter and then time-stamp the encrypted document.


3.      Combined with digital signatures authenticated by a trusted
        agent, the precise terms of a digital agreement could be
        established -- there's no precedent for it yet in law,
        however.


Well, anyway, it's all commended to IPers' attention.


Steve Haynes


* Stephen L. Haynes            Internet:  shaynes () research westlaw com
* Manager, WESTLAW Research    MCI Mail:  221-3969
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