Re: Hackers beware: quantum encryption is coming

From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 09:48:11 MDT

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    Hal Finney wrote:

    > Bret Paatsch writes:
    > > But with this Secret Patent idea, based on a convo I had
    > > with a patent office guy in Australia, the would be patenter
    > > subs their application and if anything weaponish grabs the
    > > attention of the examiner, the examiner is obliged to shoot
    > > it off to the the defence department for the once over.
    >
    > Yes, this really happens. In the United States it is called a
    > Patent Secrecy Order and is described at
    > http://www.sumeria.net/free/secorder.html and
    > http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/invention/program.html
    > for example.

    Thanks for the link Hal, I would not have intuitively gone
    looking for this stuff with a keyword like Sumeria.

    >
    > If your invention is given such an order, you not only
    > don't get the patent, you aren't allowed to make or use
    > the invention, or to tell anyone about it. One reference
    > I found from the 1980s suggested that there were several
    > thousand patent secrecy orders in effect in the United
    > States at that time, many of them relating to cryptography.
    >

    Yeah I was hoping to collect a few declassified historic
    examples of these but the Australia patent office guy I'd
    been speaking though he recollected but could not put
    his fingure on a specific example.

    <snip>

    >
    > One way to avoid a patent secrecy order is to not
    > patent your idea.

    Yep. But at this stage although there is much in patent
    law that is ripe for revision the most optimal (fastest)
    paths to actualising transhumanist technologies that I can
    think of rely on the use of patents to secure funding in scale.

    > As far
    > as I know, there is no comparable procedure to hush
    > up your invention if you don't patent it. Of course
    > certain areas such as nuclear research are "born
    > classified" and you can't start selling nuclear reactors.
    > It's possible that eventually nanotech and similar
    > technologies will be treated like nuclear work,
    > something illegal unless done under government
    > supervision.

    That this will happen with nanotech and cryptography
    strong enough to withstand governmental economic
    imperialism is my current concern.

    Regards,
    Brett Paatsch



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