[Cryptography] Komitments

[Richard Outerbridge]

> On 2018-12-19 (353), at 13:54:01, Richard Clayton <richard at highwayman.com> wrote:
> 
> In message <AM4PR0701MB2226D4711F9F99CED6FDC32CC4BE0 at AM4PR0701MB2226.eur
> prd07.prod.outlook.com>, =?utf-8?B?T3NtYW4gS3V6dWN1IEhvc3RpbmcgV2ViIFRhc
> 2FyxLFtIEdyYWZpaw==?= <bizbucaliyiz at hotmail.com> writes
> 
>> Please excuse my ignorance if I say something that is not feasible as I am 
>> fairly new to cryptography. However, I was thinking about a possible solution 
>> such that;
>> 
>> Bob’s message = Alice is an agent = a1
>> 
>> Time of the message = 01.01.1991 01:01 = b1
>> 
>> sha512(a1+b1) => result hash.
>> 
>> Bob then shares that result hash with some other third party and after Alice’s 
>> arrest, he shares the input data with third party and makes them verify the hash 
>> so he can prove he was the person who found about Alice.
> 
> yes ... but the timestamp is meaningless
> 

[ … ]

Yeah, unauthenticated timestamps are legally meaningless, because they are
so easily forged. At best an aide de memoire.  How, or whom, best to trust time?

Always remember that the higher one goes, the slower time seems to become.
__outer