key service/GNU Prior Art Registry

[David Feuer <david@feuer.his.com>]

Please forward to anyone interested:

	I started thinking a few days ago about the proposed "GNU Prior Art
Registry" (see old messages on LK).  The idea was to have a repository of
ideas, inventions, etc. to assist in anti-patent litigation.  Really, the
absolute minimal system for this would be a secure time-stamping service.
A Free-software programmer would compute an MD5 hash of his
document/source file, encrypt it with the registry's public key (to keep
anyone from substituting himself for the security server), and send
it with an optional description and URL to
a centralized timestamp server.  The server would assign the submission a
registry number,  record the number, description and URL so users could
browse them, and send the numbered, timestamped, and digitally signed hash
back to the programmer.  This way, the programmer could prove that he
invented the telegraph-based user interface before Microsoft.  He'd
obviously have to keep an exact copy of the document around.
	I soon realized that the free-software community could use such a
server (with some additions) for other purposes as well.  For example:
Storing the names, email addresses, and public keys of the maintainers of
free-software projects, allowing users to securely verify that their
downloaded files have not been maliciously changed en route.
	Obviously, everyone would have to know the public keys of the
security server for this to work, but distributing a server key or two is
much easier than dealing individually with each and every key.
	If you like this idea, hate this idea, or have an available web
server, please let me know.


This message has been brought to you by the letter alpha and the number pi.

David Feuer
dfeuer@his.com
dfeuer@binx.mbhs.edu
Open Source: Think locally; act globally.
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