Re: Private key possession

[Denis Pinkas <D.Pinkas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike wrote:

> Clyde at the patent office scratches his head at the fact that both Alice
> and Bob have sent patent requests for the same item... mumbles and then
> sends back a request to both parties to resign the patent request this
> time, including the text of their certificate within the patent request.
> Alice promptly proves she posesses the private key corresponding to the
> public key by signing the request. Bob, unable to validly sign the request,
> feeling his days are numbered and looking over his shoulder for the FBI,
> packs and leaves for Barracuda.

Your proposal works nicely but signing the request involves an extra
exchange that can be avoided. I wrote :

"The general way to solve the problem is to include enough information 
within the signed text to identify unambiguously the signer. (...) A
more general solution is to reserve some place within the signed text 
to insert at least the identifier of the certificate. The best being to 
insert a certification path."

Basically, what I propose is to do it in the initial sending of the
patent rather than doing it in an additional request coming from the
patent office.

Denis

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