I wonder why we don't have better (widely trusted and used) timestamping services. It has always been easy to prove that something happened
after a certain time: take a photo of today's newspaper, mention stock prices, etc.
But proving that an event happened before a certain time, like in the article, is a lot harder. You can send someone an email through a trusted gateway, but people can only check by having access to that mailbox, or trusting the person who has access. And I know about PKI timestamping, but I've never seen them used for legal cases, maybe because the complexity erodes trust.
Are there any good solutions that would convince a non-technical judge?
Edit: I remember Twitter[1] being used for this purpose, but I don't know if today I'd trust a hash dropped there, given how much it's evolving and/or struggling.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26609183
But proving that an event happened before a certain time, like in the article, is a lot harder. You can send someone an email through a trusted gateway, but people can only check by having access to that mailbox, or trusting the person who has access. And I know about PKI timestamping, but I've never seen them used for legal cases, maybe because the complexity erodes trust.
Are there any good solutions that would convince a non-technical judge?
Edit: I remember Twitter[1] being used for this purpose, but I don't know if today I'd trust a hash dropped there, given how much it's evolving and/or struggling.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26609183