Lab Books was Re: [lug] BLUG archive library?

[J. Wayde Allen]

On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Evelyn Mitchell wrote:

> * On 2002-09-09 20:02 John E. Koontz <koontz at boulder.nist.gov> wrote:
> > At 01:29 PM 9/9/2002 -0600, you wrote:
> 
> > I don't happen to see a general solution 
> > either, though the issue of producing certificated, timestamped material 
> > that might be admissible strikes me as an interesting one:  how to produce 
> > an admissible or potentially admissible electronic version of the lab book?
> 
> There are several projects for Electronic Lab books. They use the technique
> of signing a page cryptographically, and then having the witnesses sign the
> signed page with their key.

Yes, and in some ways the electronically signed material is more secure
than printed material.  NIST uses electronic signatures on a number of
their sets of standard reference data for obvious reasons.

In this particular case I don't think the problem is so much verifying the
validity of historical material as it is having a place and/or a desire to
store it.

- Wayde
  (wallen at lug.boulder.co.us)