From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham)
Date: Tue, 31 May 94 12:27:25 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: I back your scratch...
Message-ID: <9405311917.AA13956@smds.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


So, the reason I asked about "orthogonal checksums" was this:

If you can check the integrity of a copy of a file remotely, then
people can trade storage space and have remote backups.  Or have 
more complicated schemes where, say, a group of users pay for a 
common storage service by backing up some of the files (or other 
files) for the provider.

The nice thing about this is that storage space is something that's
immediately valuable and electronically tradable.  And its value
can increase by trading.  In other words, we can trade one meg for
one meg and both come out ahead in terms of safety.  "I back your 
scratch and you back mine."

I'm not sure storage space makes a good unit of value for anything
else, since the cost of storage keeps going down.  On the other 
hand, trading space for space is immune to that inflation.

Some concrete applications:
    o  Making bulletin boards' data safe from loss by vandalism
    o  Archiving a mailing list

-fnerd

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nowhere man has gone before
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