Poor man's patent in the Digital Age (apparently done, but can it be popularized?)

You probably know what a "poor man's patent" is. Describe your idea on paper, put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself. This way you have a sealed envelope with a post office date stamp on it.

In theory, e-mailing something to yourself should have the same effect. You can also be pretty sure your ISP logs all e-mail from the past two years (or more) for law enforcement. This way even if your message gets deleted, a back up copy of it is probably safe somewhere.

A disadvantage of e-mailing something to yourself is that the full description of your idea, unprotected by an envelope, passes through someone else's hands.

What if an online service called www.ProofOfOrigin.com opens up? The service would have a downloadable client software which can be ran on your computer. The client software would ask for a [text] file and compute a unique SHA-1 hash from it (a cryptographically secure checksum.) This hash/checksum would then be submitted to the ProofOfOrigin.com servers and logged under your personal account. At that point you can put the original file in a safe place (burn to CD, or even print it out, if it is pure ASCII text).

You still have your file and you have not shown its contents to anyone. ProofOfOrigin.com has a unique fingerprint of this file associated with the real name of the submitter - you.

Such a service will not prove that you are the original creator of the file. What this service will prove is that you possessed a copy of that particular file on a specific date. Just like a Notary Public who stamps a sealed envelope.

[If legally accepted] This can be used for all the things a Notary Public's seal is used for.

Ok - so I just searched for "notary" and found a service called Surety.com which has been doing something similar since 1994. Oops - I am only a bit over 10 years late with this idea. Someone like Paypal however can enter this market pretty easily - they already have a large number of customers with verified identities.

Update: Just took a better look at Surety's web site, and these guys had a genius solution for becoming trustworthy. They run their whole database of hashes through the same [SHA-1 hash] algorithm and publish the resulting hash in an AD section of New York Times every week. This way no one can accuse them of backdating a hash - its all verifiable. They also "backported" their system to today's legal system by Notarizing via a human Notary Public their printed list of hashes every so often. Wow. I am impressed. Now I wonder if there is a way to create a competing distributed/redundant system...

Build your own WiFi Hotspot

So if I put a Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router (or another Broadcom based router) on my balcony, it could become a source of revenue. Having a balcony next to a public beach could help a lot. All that needs to be done is a firmware replacement with one of these:
Sveasoft, or OpenWRT, or eWRT, or Wi-Fi Box. Or you can use Linspot on a Mac with any router. Wi-Fi box specifically was favorably reviewed. Just make sure reselling bandwidth does not violate your broadband provider's terms of service. Speakeasy even seems to encourage it.

This is a Slashdot Idea - not mine, but I like it =).