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Status: U Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 14:45:43 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Peter Wayner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Searching for uncopyable key made of sparkles in plastic Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Several months ago, I read about someone who was making a key that was difficult if not "impossible" to copy. They mixed sparkly things into a plastic resin and let them set. A camera would take a picture of the object and pass the location of the sparkly parts through a hash function to produce the numerical key represented by this hunk of plastic. That numerical value would unlock documents. This was thought to be very difficult to copy because the sparkly items were arranged at random. Arranging all of the sparkly parts in the right sequence and position was thought to be beyond the limits of precision for humans. Can anyone give me a reference to this paper/project? Thanks! -Peter --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]