From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:34:23 +0800
To: Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Who needs time vaults anyway?
Message-ID: <199511130613.WAA12515@ix7.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 01:15 PM 11/11/95 -0800, Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu> wrote:
>As for real time-release - how about just using conventional encryption, 
>and require it to be brute-forced?  ..... Moore's law .....

Moore's law is really unpredictable - you can't be sure if the rate of
increase will go up or down, which could affect brute-force time by a
factor of 1000 pretty easily, especially if it suddenly becomes convenient
to do something your crypto-algorithm happens to use.

Also, there's a cost problem - a large brute-force project which requires
N years to crack either needs to be ferociously expensive, or else it's
easy for somebody to put a bunch of machines together to crack it faster.
For anything that requires that level of paranoia, Moore's law probably makes
the timing too unpredictable.

It probably makes a lot more sense to just do contractual solutions,
with secret-sharing protocols to minimize the effects of cheating,
bankrupt service providers, and accidents.
#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# Phone +1-510-247-0663 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281