Method for notarizing receipt of electronic communications and enabling electronic registered mail; method for verifying identity of account party

摘要

A notarization method is disclosed whereby two parties can transmit and exchange electronic data without sharing either the data or any proprietary security information with third parties, and whereby the receiving party cannot surreptitiously examine the data without creating a logged record. In a preferred embodiment, the sending party uses an encryption algorithm to encrypt the data package, generating an encrypted copy of the data and a session key that can be used to retrieve the plaintext copy of that data package. The session key is split into two or more discrete subkeys, some or all of which are required to reconstruct the session key, and none of which alone will compromise the other subkeys or the data package. Using secure transport methods, the encrypted data packet and one or more subkeys are delivered to the intended recipient. The remaining subkeys are either retained by the sending party or delivered to a trusted third party using secure transport methods. Using secure and verifiable transport methods, the recipient retrieves the remaining subkeys. This retrieval is logged and an electronic receipt is created documenting the time of retrieval and the identity of the retriever. Once the recipient has sufficient subkeys, it reconstructs the session key and decrypts the data package. The result is similar to a postal system of registered mail, using encryption to replace the security of a human being requiring a physical signature. In an alternate configuration, the system is used to verify the identity of one party for use in applications such as allowing anonymous electronic cash transactions.