From: Eric Hughes <hughes@soda.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 08:59:13 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Electronic Contracts
In-Reply-To: <9306011235.AA08210@IMSI.COM>
Message-ID: <9306011633.AA17111@soda.berkeley.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>I believe if you really want it to hold up, you should use the
>Bellcore document signing service.  Has anyone heard of a company
>that would provide this on a non-research basis?

The Bellcore service is properly a timestamping service and not a
signature service.  Their timestamp is constructed out of hash
functions, not digital signatures.

The algorithm is patented.  Contact Bellcore for licensing.  I'm not
sure they are going to license; they may decide that they want all the
timestamping revenue themselves.

Eric