From: FitugMix <tonne@thur.de>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 17:17:32 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: distribution scheme
Message-ID: <199812220853.JAA16038@jengate.thur.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



I'd like to request your comments on the following idea. code for this is ready, awaiting yours and some other people's comments regarding some of the non-coding issues.
for example, I'd like a lawyer or someone else familiar with the law to comment on the legal aspects. also, cryptologic
expertise would be great. however, this is NOT an encryption scheme. the goals are different ones, I'll talk about that in a second.

the basic idea is to take a piece of information and chop it into a number of pieces. this is basically the reverse process of "take the first letter of every word".
digital information, however, can be divided at an even lower level, the bit level. imagine to chop a file into 8 parts, with the top bit of every byte going into the first
file, the second bit into the second and so on. as you can imagine, the first 8 top-bits will again form a byte in the first file.
now imagine the same principle, with an *arbitrary* number of files.

the goal of this is not a new encryption scheme. cryptological, my limited knowledge tells me this is not too bad, but far from "secure". the nice things are that the files
themselves contain no information about how many total files there are and in which order they have to be re-assembled, and without that knowledge you are in for some
work of cryptoanalysis.
the idea is to provide for a channel of distribution of arbitrary material, even copyrighted, patented or illegal in your country (e.g. china) in a "legal" way. that's why
I'd like legal advice on this - is the idea correct? I cannot be sued for distributing a couple hundred E's and A's because they are part of a copyrighted book. can
I be sued for distributing a couple of bits from a copyrighted image file? a trademarked or patented document? are there any legal precedents? I know that in the case
of encryption, courts have at least once ruled that distribution of the key that unlocks this is equivalent to distribution of the copyrighted material, but in this case
there is no key, no single piece of information that contains anything "central".

tell me what you think. I can post code or details if you want.



Falcon