Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 10BASE-T Specs
Message-ID: <1990Nov1.163616.4039@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <2885@unccvax.uncc.edu> <2230118@hprnd.rose.hp.com> <1990Oct31.172727.347@zoo.toronto.edu> <90336@elsie.nci.nih.gov>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 16:36:16 GMT

In article <90336@elsie.nci.nih.gov> ado@elsie.nci.nih.gov (Arthur David Olson) writes:
>> It is too easy to slightly alter a copy and then pass it along to your
>> customers as proof that you are standard.
>
>So why not borrow some technology from, for example, credit card companies?
>Little holograms on standard documents would improve the aesthetics to boot.
>Might not notarization also be a possibility?

How do you do this for machine-readable copies, which was the subject of
the discussion?  (Yes, there are digital-signature schemes... most of them
not widely available, and some of them subject to patent protection.)  In
case this wasn't meant seriously -- in which case it should have had ":-)"
on it -- note that while the problem exists in theory for paper copies, it
is vastly harder (and more expensive) for them than for digital copies.

Actually, there is interest, last I heard, in the idea of distributing
machine-readable standards on CDROMs, which have the advantage that mere
mortals are not equipped to (mis)duplicate them.
-- 
"I don't *want* to be normal!"         | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Not to worry."                        |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry