Re: ArcotSign (was Re: Does security depend on hardware?)

[Bruce Schneier <schneier@counterpane.com>]

At 01:32 PM 9/21/98 -0700, bram wrote:
>On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Bruce Schneier wrote:
>
>> Here's the basic idea:  Strew a million passwords on your hard drive, and
>> make it impossible to verify which is the correct one offline.  So, someone
>> who steals the password file off the client cannot run a cracking tool
>> against the file.
>
>Is this really patentable? It sounds a *lot* like the original public-key
>algorithm (the one involving lots of little 'puzzles')

I am not an attorney, so I cannot advise on patentability.  But note that
I simplified the explanation A LOT in the above paragraph.

Bruce
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