The fight against computer fraud is about to go into orbit. A team of American inventors has developed a PC card that uses satellite signals to record the time and place that computer files are created or changed.

Reprinted with permission from
Sunday Business (UK)
22 Feb. 1998 by Carl Franklin

The technology could help resolve legal disputes by giving companies a way to prove that documents such as letters and accounts were created at a particular time.

It could also create a secure identification system for electronic transactions according to Dr. Ze'ev Hed one of the card's inventors.

At present, computers use their internal clocks to timestamp new files, but changing the clock is a simple trick even for a notice. All PCs have a user-friendly date and time programme that can be used to fool the computer into stamping the file with the wrong time and date.

In this way, anyone can give the impression they were hard at work on a Saturday afternoon when they were really at home in front of the television.

More sophisticated computer users employ an encryption system using a private encryption key and a matching public key to authenticate and time-stamp their documents.

However, this method still does not give a truly independent verification of the time the document was created.

Although the exact details of how the new time-stamp technology works are secret, Hed says it has a global-positioning system which uses time signals from at least three satellites to fix its exact location on the earth's surface.

By using a combination of hardware and software, information from the satellites is encrypted into each file, giving it a unique time and space"identity. Different computers in the same office will give different locations because of the accuracy of the GPS system, so decoding the data can prove that the file was created on a particular computer at a particular time.

Hed believes the time stamp could appeal to brooking houses, which may need to provide accurate evidence of the time that deals are executed in their computers.

Another potential use is to identify the computers being used in on-line transactions, so that only computers in "authorized" locations can be used.

"People are doing deals worth billions every day, and this will allow you to check that everything is above board," he says. "Each financial transaction can be timed so you can follow and audit trail to see if anyone is playing games with the computer system."

The PC card was developed for Gate Technologies, a technology commercialization company based in Boca Raton in Florida.

Gate's president, Dr Roger Dube, says that a number of his clients had asked if there was a way to create a secure time stamping system that used an independent method of verifying the time that a file was created.

"We saw a need for this because the only way you can get anything like a secure time stamp is to use a 'remote certifying' company," he explains, adding that such companies charge a fee for providing an independent certification that a document existed at a particular time.

"The problem is that if you have a system that requires you to send even a part of a document over the Internet there are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong and for any unsavory activity."

To come up with a solution, Gate Technologies approached Invent Resources, a group of freelance inventors which included DR Hed. Dube is impressed with their invention, which he believes is completely secure.

"Anyone tying to subvert this system would have to get control of three GPs satellites and change their clocks, which is more than a little difficult," he says.

Dube identifies law and auditing firms - and their clients - as a big market for the time stamp but adds that it could provide legal protection for the emergency services, the banking industry and any other industries whose work requires a high degree of authentication.

Another obvious use would be to verify orders given by military commanders in the field.

Gate Technologies is negotiating with a number of hardware manufacturers to turn the prototype card into commercial reality.

Dube expects a deal to be struck within months and a product could follow within a year.

Computer security expert Michael Bacon. director of Information Risk Management, at KPMG, says authentication technology will be vital if online commerce is to succeed, because deals are made between computers owned by people who do not know each other.

"Current techniques revolve around encryption systems using public and private keys but there is some justification for saying we'd like to pin things down more accurately that that, by having some spatial co-ordinates as well."

Bacon cites cases where fraudsters have managed to divert cargoes of oil while the tankers were at sea, because their captains were unable to authenticate the source of purchase orders sent by telex.