unforgeable optical tokens?

[John Kelsey]

At 03:31 PM 9/24/02 -0400, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

...
>A fair number of years ago, I saw something like this proposed for 
>non-proliferation seals on nuclear reactors.  The scheme then (I 
>believe I saw it in Science News) was that International Atomic Engergy 
>Agency inspectors would use a length of randomly-twisted multi-strand 
>fiber optic cable and use it to seal a door that they opened to verify 
>that the reactor in question wasn't being used to build weapons.  

Wasn't there another idea along these lines proposed for currency
counterfeit resistance?  Something about embedding optical fibers into the
paper in some somewhat random way, and digitally encoding a signature on
the resulting pattern somehow?  

>		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
>		http://www.wilyhacker.com ("Firewalls" book)

--John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com // jkelsey at certicom.com
 --John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com // jkelsey at certicom.com


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