There are quite a few ways in which RFC3161 falls short of what someone might want:
1. This particular online notary differs from previous online notaries in that it can issue statements based on its own view of factoids on the Internet. So it can issue statements like "from the VN's vantage point, the DNS A record for domain X is Y." In contrast, a timestamp service only issues statements of the form "at time X, client Y said Z."
2. VN is a concrete implementation whereas RFC3161 is only a protocol specification.
3. VN uses the widely accepted X.509 format while RFC3161 introduces its own custom format.
4. VN implementation is backed by the Bitcoin public ledger and Twitter to protect against rollback attacks.
Cool service! Note that Virtual Notary also embeds the hashes in the Bitcoin public ledger. I kind of like this part of the implementation, partly because it's hacky and partly because it does something useful with Bitcoin.
The Internet has really changed the game here. What does a trusted person mean in a global context? More importantly, what exactly is the global entity that would declare a person to be trusted? If you've ever had to deal with international notarization, you'll know that the best that the current system can offer is a system of irregular local standards, glued together through Apostilles on dead trees. These are at best inefficient, though archaic would probably be a more accurate description.
Changing that landscape starts with providing alternatives to the public so that your Joe/Jane Lawmaker can see what is possible and change the laws to match the new technological capabilities.
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Cool service! Note that Virtual Notary also embeds the hashes in the Bitcoin public ledger. I kind of like this part of the implementation, partly because it's hacky and partly because it does something useful with Bitcoin.
If you were to look at the subsection called "Truth vs. Notarization" in this link in the article, you'll find much of the same points made.
The Internet has really changed the game here. What does a trusted person mean in a global context? More importantly, what exactly is the global entity that would declare a person to be trusted? If you've ever had to deal with international notarization, you'll know that the best that the current system can offer is a system of irregular local standards, glued together through Apostilles on dead trees. These are at best inefficient, though archaic would probably be a more accurate description.
Changing that landscape starts with providing alternatives to the public so that your Joe/Jane Lawmaker can see what is possible and change the laws to match the new technological capabilities.
Thanks, fixed!