[Sci-Fi] Re: expiration dates on cryptography

["Richard Martin" <rmartin@aw.sgi.com>]

For methods of jiggering physical clocks, one might eventually reach the
stage of attempting to have physically unjiggable clocks. [Well, theoretically
unjiggable, just as our hideously huge composites are thought unfactorable
by computability arguments.]

Example:
I have a piece of information which I wish to remain secret until a well-
defined date in the future. I encrypt it then lob a package containing
the information into a well-defined and predictable trajectory which will
cause it to intersect the earth's trajector at that time [or shortly
thereafter]. I would [guess, hope, no, I haven't sat here and calculated]
that there should exist possible systems where beyond an initial period of
about a week, there would be no earthly technology capable of catching
up with the packet.

Alright, so it's hideously expensive. But you could put a lot of information
into one packet. Apollo Assured Archiving could have fixed rates per megabyte,
with regular [monthly?] launches into reliable orbits. At which point the
joy becomes making sure there aren't packet-catching bases on the far
side of Mercury... [with the mind control lasers, of course]

frodo

--
Richard Martin
Alias|Wavefront - Toronto Office [Co-op Software Developer, Games Team]
rmartin@aw.sgi.com/g4frodo@cdf.toronto.edu      http://www.io.org/~samwise
Trinity College UofT ChemPhysCompSci 9T7+PEY=9T8 Shad Valley Waterloo 1992