[1609] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Crypto Keys as Spam
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Donald E. Eastlake 3rd)
Wed Sep 24 12:06:17 1997
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 11:42:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <dee@cybercash.com>
To: Dan Geer <geer@world.std.com>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <199709241416.AA06910@world.std.com>
Patent applications are quite expensive, as I understand it, just for the
filing fee. So I don't think this works anywhere fees are high. And in
cases where there is no or a nominal fee, in general the agency you are
filing with can sue you for "abuse of process" and get a court order
restraiing you if they prevail and possibly ultimately collect damages. The
law recognizes that mechanisms have some purpose and that not every way to
maliciously screw them up could necessarily be thought of in advance and
provided for explcitly. Typical case was a law intended to encourage small
claims for mineral rights on federal land that imposed a fee only on larger
claims. I believe at least a few of those attempting to evade the fees by
filing thousands of small claims have lost in court when sued by the local
country registries.
I'm not saying things couldn't get away with it because it can be hard to
convince a court of abuse but you should also know that agencies are not
without recourse.
Donald
On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, Dan Geer wrote:
> Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 10:16:20 -0400
> From: Dan Geer <geer@world.std.com>
> To: Charles Platt <cp@panix.com>
> Cc: cryptography@c2.net
> Subject: Re: Crypto Keys as Spam
>
>
> If we do suffer a federal law that mandates key escrow and survives
> constitutional tests, would it be possible to screw the system by
> generating huge numbers of crypto keys for federal storage? Imagine,
> say, 100,000 people each contributing a million different keys to the
> federal registry.
>
> The late Head of Research for XXX was staunchly
> opposed to software patenting as practiced by the
> US PTO. In a discussion of that matter, he told
> me that icon patents galled him particularly, so
> he had filed 3,500 of them in a single go just to
> choke the system and, in so doing, end the issue
> of icon patents for a time. I could follow up,
> but the point is that overwhelming the system is
> a venerable idea. Dating myself, that's why 50,000
> of us turned in our draft cards on the same day.
>
> --dan
>
>
=====================================================================
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 978-287-4877(tel) dee@cybercash.com
318 Acton Street +1 978-371-7148(fax) dee@world.std.com
Carlisle, MA 01741 USA +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA)
http://www.cybercash.com http://www.privacy.org/ipc
