Historical one-way hash functions

So, you want to be able to prove in the future that you have
some piece of
information today - without revealing that piece of
information.  We all
know how to do that:  Widely publish today the one-way hash
of the
information.

Well ... it turns out this idea is old.  Very old.  In the
17th century,
scientists were very concerned about establishing priority;
but they
also often wanted to delay publication so that they could
continue to
work on the implications of their ideas without giving
anyone else the
opportunity to do it.  Thus, in 1678, Robert Hooke published
an idea he
had first developed in 1660.  Even then, he only published
the
following:  ceiiinosssttuu.  Two years later, he revealed
that this was
an anagram of the Latin phrase "Ut tensio sic uis"
- "as the tension so
the power" - what we today call Hooke's Law of elastic
deformation.

(This story appears in Henry Petroski's "The Evolution
of Useful
Things".)
 							-- Jerry

------------------------------------------------------------
---------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography"
to majordomometzdowd.com