METHOD FOR SECURE TIME-STAMPING OF DIGITAL DOCUMENTS

摘要

A system for time-stamping a digital document is disclosed which protects the secrecy of the document text and provides a tamper-proof time seal establishing an author's claim to the temporal existence of the document. Initially the author prepares the document (21), which may then be condensed by a process such as hashing (22). Next, the document is transmitted to the Time Stamping Authority (23), which adds time data to create a receipt (25) and data from adjacent receipts (27). Thereafter, the Time Stamping Authority applies a cryptographic signature to the composite receipt (28), which is then transmitted to the author (29).