Rich’s Collection of Geekery

I was reading this post on Slashdot about TiVO’s recently filed patent application on a “password you can’t hack“. I was just thinking… isn’t this basically a zero knowledge proof?

“Eventually, systems were devised that require the host to prove that it knows the password without actually revealing the password, thus allowing the host to become secretly authorized without any unwanted hosts learning any information about the authorization password.”

What I’m wondering is, how the heck can this be patented? First of all it’s Martin Hellman’s algorithm, they’re just using it. Secondly, they refer to SHA-1 as a “new algorithm” that they use to perform the challenge-response. Argh. The more I learn about cryptography, the more I question the patents filed on these sorts of things.

Current Mood:  annoyed