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Wasn't the old version of this trick sending the information in a well sealed envelope through the mail to get a dated postmark? More than 140 characters but you can only prove it once by unsealing the envelope!



You could tweet the cryptographic hash of a piece of information longer than 140 characters to prove that it existed at a certain time.


I never understood this trick. Surely you could just mail an empty envelope ahead of time for the postmark, then put whatever you wanted to prove in it later?


I think the idea is that you keep it sealed until it is needed, then open it in some way that creates a legally admissible proof of the contents (maybe opened by a notary or something; and examined for postmark/envelope tampering by some sort of expert in that field, who can testify his training leads him to believe it is authentic.)




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