US PAT 6,061,448: Method and system for dynamic server document encryption Tumbleweed Communications
We claim:
1. A method for secure document delivery from a sender over a wide area network, comprising the steps of:
a sender encrypting a document using a secret key;
the sender contacting a Delivery Server to query a public key associated with an intended recipient;
the Delivery Server dynamically retrieving the public key in real time from a certificate authority;
the Delivery Server transmitting the public key back to the sender;
the sender encrypting the secret key with the public key; and
the sender transmitting the encrypted document and the encrypted secret key to the Delivery Server for transmission to the recipient.
If a Delivery Server is equivalent to a server such as a mail server, and if the same server is a proxy, firewall, or otherwise in the chain between user and certificate authority, then it would seem in my inexpert opinion to be infringing, though these operations were in wide use before this patent was applied for in 1997 and should therefore be more precisely considered prior art.
The USPTO's decision to allow patents on software is a nightmare and should be reversed; the EU should take special notice of our IP follies before embracing them.
(In this case real time could be a mistake that renders the patent useless since "real time" is an ill defined concept in computing: do they mean literally instanteously, do they mean within a framed interval as in an RTOS, do they mean without human intervention?)
I never ship anything fragile UPS any more. I've had some amazing destruction in UPS packages: polycarbonate Mac cases shattered to fragments, monitor front surfaces broken, etc. These are all padded, boxed shipments that could easily have survived a 4 foot drop onto concrete. It's entirely beyond me how they managed such destruction unless they ran over it with a forklift or something. I did observe my regular UPS guy unloading his truck by tossing the boxes out the back and onto the street. He may have been an exception.
FedEx on the other hand has never broken anything I've shipped, so now I use them exclusively.
A friend of mine worked at UPS as a line sorter and told me that, given the input rate and the sort-to distance (as in feet), they had no choice but to throw the boxes.
Oh, and I have never managed to get UPS to pay for damage, though in fairness FedEx isn't real good about actually following through with promised remuneration for their errors either.
The treaty may (hopefully) be held in contravention of the constitution which would bar the US from enacting it. Article 9, section 2b 2c mirror the virtual kiddie porn clause in the CPPA. If the supreme court finds that clause of the CPPA in defiance of the first amendment (for being overbroad) then, presumably, this miserable little bit of judicial imprudence would also be and we who manage our own servers will hopefully not quickly be hobbled with the provision that we catalog all the traffic for law enforcement to peruse on their donut breaks.
I sent the following letter to Oakland (my fair city) and got a postive reply.
Dear Mayor's Office,
I am a citizen of Oakland and a computer professional. I've worked for
Apple, for Paul Allen (of Microsoft), and on my own as a consultant. I've
found myself moving my computers to Open Source OS's because it's just too
much of a hassle to comply with increasingly bizarre licensing schemes and
increasingly Draconian punishments for accidently violating them (viz.
Sklyarov). And, there's the reliability issues. I was very happy not to
even worry that my BSD servers would be affected by the latest round of
internet worms.
I'm not certain this is the case, but statistically I'd guess Oakland tends
to use Windows systems and if it's true, it would seem to me as a taxpayer
as an inappropriate use of my funds given that the result is, in comparison
to what can be done with Linux and Open Source, an unreliable, complex,
resource hungry, insecure computer system that costs an obscene amount of
money.
Microsoft has been promulgating lies to FUD companies and municipalities
into eschewing better technology and continue to pay for their lavish
Redmond lifestyle. We who understand the technology find these accusations
laughable lies, but it's hard to overcome momentum without, at least, a
good counter-example.
Fortunately, the good citizens of the forward thinking city of Largo, FL
have risen to the challenge and proven that it is possible to run a city on
Linux and in so doing improve reliability, performance, and security all
the while saving great boatloads of tax money.
Do you remember these fine words from the Supreme Court's ruling on the CDA
"As we have explained, the Government may not "reduc[e] the adult population . . . to . . . only what is fit for children." Denver, 518 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 29) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Sable, 492 U. S., at 128). [n.40] "[R]egardless of the strength of the government's interest" in protecting children, "[t]he level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited to that which would be suitable for a sandbox." Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 74-75 (1983)."
By the way, despite the shock of discovering that there are people on the net who find no offense in pornographic materials, and that they might use transport protocols other than http, the vast majority of traffic is still via the web. You may have found a shocking large list of related files searching for Britney Spears on Bearshare, but type "britney spears nude" in google and you get 88,900 hits.
By learning the technology, you could focus your self-righteous umbrage at a more appropriate target, such as Bob Dole, who's prime time, broadcast television conflation of Ms. Spears and Viagra reaches far more children than www.bsnude.com ever will.
It is outgoing only, it is intended to be disposable, it is intended to be used as a phone card would be, though that seems a rather ambitious price target.
It looks to me like "paper" is a misnomer, more likely kapton or similar film on which conductive traces are set, the keyboard is pretty much the same resistive sheet looking stuff you find in a lot of inexpensive components.
This is not a major innovation, the patent is very narrow (and therefore weak).
Randi's earlier patent:
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05965848__
which forms the basis for construction of the phone is broader and more interesting and claims, basically, using what are commonly termed "flex circuits" folded up to form the entire product.
More entertaining is her patent on cereal action figures that dissolve to form a serving of cereal.
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05863583__
Randi seems to have been awarded 9 US patents on 3 basic ideas - an extremely "little bit Edison" indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
Tumbleweed Communications
We claim:
1. A method for secure document delivery from a sender over a wide area network, comprising the steps of:a sender encrypting a document using a secret key;
the sender contacting a Delivery Server to query a public key associated with an intended recipient;
the Delivery Server dynamically retrieving the public key in real time from a certificate authority;
the Delivery Server transmitting the public key back to the sender;
the sender encrypting the secret key with the public key; and
the sender transmitting the encrypted document and the encrypted secret key to the Delivery Server for transmission to the recipient.
If a Delivery Server is equivalent to a server such as a mail server, and if the same server is a proxy, firewall, or otherwise in the chain between user and certificate authority, then it would seem in my inexpert opinion to be infringing, though these operations were in wide use before this patent was applied for in 1997 and should therefore be more precisely considered prior art.
The USPTO's decision to allow patents on software is a nightmare and should be reversed; the EU should take special notice of our IP follies before embracing them.
(In this case real time could be a mistake that renders the patent useless since "real time" is an ill defined concept in computing: do they mean literally instanteously, do they mean within a framed interval as in an RTOS, do they mean without human intervention?)
WSB&C is the law firm that one of the lead lawyers, Stanley M.Chesley, runs.
FedEx on the other hand has never broken anything I've shipped, so now I use them exclusively.
A friend of mine worked at UPS as a line sorter and told me that, given the input rate and the sort-to distance (as in feet), they had no choice but to throw the boxes.
Oh, and I have never managed to get UPS to pay for damage, though in fairness FedEx isn't real good about actually following through with promised remuneration for their errors either.
The treaty may (hopefully) be held in contravention of the constitution which would bar the US from enacting it. Article 9, section 2b 2c mirror the virtual kiddie porn clause in the CPPA. If the supreme court finds that clause of the CPPA in defiance of the first amendment (for being overbroad) then, presumably, this miserable little bit of judicial imprudence would also be and we who manage our own servers will hopefully not quickly be hobbled with the provision that we catalog all the traffic for law enforcement to peruse on their donut breaks.
Dear Mayor's Office,
I am a citizen of Oakland and a computer professional. I've worked for Apple, for Paul Allen (of Microsoft), and on my own as a consultant. I've found myself moving my computers to Open Source OS's because it's just too much of a hassle to comply with increasingly bizarre licensing schemes and increasingly Draconian punishments for accidently violating them (viz. Sklyarov). And, there's the reliability issues. I was very happy not to even worry that my BSD servers would be affected by the latest round of internet worms.
I'm not certain this is the case, but statistically I'd guess Oakland tends to use Windows systems and if it's true, it would seem to me as a taxpayer as an inappropriate use of my funds given that the result is, in comparison to what can be done with Linux and Open Source, an unreliable, complex, resource hungry, insecure computer system that costs an obscene amount of money.
Microsoft has been promulgating lies to FUD companies and municipalities into eschewing better technology and continue to pay for their lavish Redmond lifestyle. We who understand the technology find these accusations laughable lies, but it's hard to overcome momentum without, at least, a good counter-example.
Fortunately, the good citizens of the forward thinking city of Largo, FL have risen to the challenge and proven that it is possible to run a city on Linux and in so doing improve reliability, performance, and security all the while saving great boatloads of tax money.
An informative article is at:
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1 441239
Oakland should do the same.
Thank You,
Do you remember these fine words from the Supreme Court's ruling on the CDA
"As we have explained, the Government may not "reduc[e] the adult population . . . to . . . only what is fit for children." Denver, 518 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 29) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Sable, 492 U. S., at 128). [n.40] "[R]egardless of the strength of the government's interest" in protecting children, "[t]he level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited to that which would be suitable for a sandbox." Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 74-75 (1983)."
By the way, despite the shock of discovering that there are people on the net who find no offense in pornographic materials, and that they might use transport protocols other than http, the vast majority of traffic is still via the web. You may have found a shocking large list of related files searching for Britney Spears on Bearshare, but type "britney spears nude" in google and you get 88,900 hits.
By learning the technology, you could focus your self-righteous umbrage at a more appropriate target, such as Bob Dole, who's prime time, broadcast television conflation of Ms. Spears and Viagra reaches far more children than www.bsnude.com ever will.
-David Gessel
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06061580__
It is outgoing only, it is intended to be disposable, it is intended to be used as a phone card would be, though that seems a rather ambitious price target.
It looks to me like "paper" is a misnomer, more likely kapton or similar film on which conductive traces are set, the keyboard is pretty much the same resistive sheet looking stuff you find in a lot of inexpensive components.
This is not a major innovation, the patent is very narrow (and therefore weak).
Randi's earlier patent:
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05965848__
which forms the basis for construction of the phone is broader and more interesting and claims, basically, using what are commonly termed "flex circuits" folded up to form the entire product.
More entertaining is her patent on cereal action figures that dissolve to form a serving of cereal.
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05863583__
Randi seems to have been awarded 9 US patents on 3 basic ideas - an extremely "little bit Edison" indeed.