Authenticated time device

Details Authenticated time device Authenticated time device

1995-02-27

2002-08-27

Buczinski, Stephen C. (Department: 3662)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support

Multiple computer communication using cryptography

Particular communication authentication technique

C340S005800, C380S051000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06442691

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to archived record keeping systems, such as a diary, for computers.
BACKGROUND ART
For hundreds of years artists, writers, politicians, and private persons have kept dairies. The diaries have generally been hand-written in a bound notebook on consecutive pages on which the date is either pre-recorded or is entered by the diarist as the entries are made.
This traditional method of keeping a diary has several useful features for the diarist and for subsequent readers. The diarist cannot easily go back and alter what he has written. Thus the diary is more likely a truer record of what the diarist actually thought at the time. The diary is “time stamped.” The diarist may ink out or tear out pages, but it is clear to future readers that this has been done; the existence of an original record is apparent along with its mutilation to indicate the intent of the mutilator to destroy a particular entry.
Only a proportionally small amount of text can be inserted at a later date, and this can possibly be detected by changes in ink or slight changes in handwriting, or by the fact that the additions have been written in the margin. To the degree that these changes can be detected the diary is tamperproof.
Any reader of the diary can be sure by the handwriting of the identity of the person who wrote the diary; that is, the diary can be verified to be authentic. The diary may be locked away so that it is private.
Attempts have been made to provide a computer diary. Many such diaries are business oriented, designed to serve as reminders and not as permanent records.
The Tandy corporation has marketed a software product named “My Personal Diary” which allows the user to type into the dated image of a page of a diary. Although the software controls access to the diary pages by use of passwords, it is possible for anyone with access to use the software to turn to any date in this diary, past, present, or future, and to delete and enter data at will. This is very unlike a real personal diary in that there is no way to determine if an entry for any date was written at any time close to that date or was written or changed months or years later.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
In a first aspect, the present invention is summarized in a computer system for archiving data blocks wherein a modifiable or working version of an original data block is stored along with a write-once read-many (WORM) record containing the original data, a stripped version of the original data, or a hash signature of the original data together with the present date. Modifications to the working data blocks are made so that the modifications can be identified and removed or restored to recreate the corresponding original data block. The authenticity of the original data with its original entry date can be readily determined along with the subsequent modifications to the original data block.
In a second aspect, the invention is summarized in a computer diary wherein storage of an original diary entry along with the present date is prohibited when the present date is before the date of the previously stored diary entry.
In a third aspect, the invention is summarized in a computer diary wherein the forming and editing of diary entries includes monitoring the input of diary entries to identify entry of selected text entries or aliases having corresponding lists of one or more previously stored specific identifying terms, displaying the one or more of stored terms corresponding to the entered selected text entry to enable the diarist to identify a correct term for the alias, and placing the identified term in the diary entry.
In a fourth aspect, the invention is summarized in a computer diary wherein the entry of diary entries for corresponding diary dates is monitored for the input relational date entries, and the diary includes formulas for computing absolute dates corresponding to the identified selected relational date entries so that the computed absolute dates can be placed in the diary entry.
It is an object of this invention to supply a computer diary system which will not only have the distinctive and useful features of a traditional diary, but also have many of the useful features which are attainable only through the aid of modern computers.
Another object of the invention is a diary which is to be kept generally proof against a casual attack by a typical user and can be implemented using software. Such a system need not necessarily be secure against a determined attack by a computer system professional or by a dedicated “diary tampering” program written by such a professional.
A further object of the invention is a computer diary with word processing, text time-stamping and authentication, secure archiving, and selective access to different portions, or “compartments”, of the diary.
One feature of the present invention is the possibility for the diarist to designate segments of text with beginning and ending codes signifying different compartments of the text wherein a piece of text may belong to several different compartments, each compartment can have its own password, and examination of the diary can be selectively restricted to users with knowledge of the appropriate set of passwords for the compartments of interest to them.
Advantages of the invention include that the diarist can control access to the diary, that the diarist, even though he is the owner of the system, cannot alter, change the date of, or erase data which is time-stamped, authenticated, and already stored.
Another feature of the invention is the provision of the capability to “tear-out” a limited amount of data per day by putting text into a tear-out compartment with a password which cannot be extracted from the computer diary by anyone, including the diarist. The diarist may, however, choose to keep a record of the tear-out password outside the computer diary if he so desires.
In a further aspect of the invention the diarist can enter a limited amount of annotation data to previous dates, and if desired by the diarist, such additions can be seen on display to be clearly distinct from data truly entered on that date by placing the annotation data in its own compartment with its own display defaults; the system ensures that the diarist is never able use the annotation capability to falsify the initial data to any person in possession of all the required passwords.
In a still further feature, the diary program ensures that data is never time-stamped with a date different from that of the current clock, nor with a time earlier than the most recent previous time a record was stored in the diary.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4244049 (1981-01-01), York et al.
patent: 4575621 (1986-03-01), Dreifus
patent: RE32655 (1988-04-01), Levine
patent: 4944008 (1990-07-01), Piosenka et al.
patent: 5027395 (1991-06-01), Anderson et al.
patent: 5150407 (1992-09-01), Chan

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