So, you want to be able to prove in the future that you have some piece of information today - without revealing that piece of information. We all know how to do that: Widely publish today the one-way hash of the information.
Well ... it turns out this idea is old. Very old. In the 17th century, scientists were very concerned about establishing priority; but they also often wanted to delay publication so that they could continue to work on the implications of their ideas without giving anyone else the opportunity to do it. Thus, in 1678, Robert Hooke published an idea he had first developed in 1660. Even then, he only published the following: ceiiinosssttuu. Two years later, he revealed that this was an anagram of the Latin phrase "Ut tensio sic uis" - "as the tension so the power" - what we today call Hooke's Law of elastic deformation. (This story appears in Henry Petroski's "The Evolution of Useful Things".) -- Jerry --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]