SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DELIVERING AND EXAMINING DIGITAL TICKETS

A digital ticket is procured by a client ticket consumer upon, preferably, the Internet from and by staged interaction with a ticket provider server. The digital ticket becomes embodied in a tangible transportable data storage medium, normally a 2-D bar code printed on paper by the consumer, or on the consumer's flexible disk or smart card, containing Sign(s,I||hash(R))||R where (1) R is a number having its origin in the computer of the ticket consumer, which number R is appended to (2) a number Sign(s,I||hash(R)). This number Sign(s,I||hash(R)) was earlier computed in the computer of the ticket provider as a digital signature using signature key s of a number hash(R) combined with event information I, and was subsequently communicated across the communications network to the computer of the ticket consumer. The number hash(R) was itself even earlier computed in the computer of the ticket consumer as a one-way function of random number R, which computed one-way function was subsequently communicated to the computer of the ticket provider. The number R is private to the ticket consumer and not public; the digital signature key s is private to the ticket provider.The digital ticket is redeemed by (1) transporting the transportable storage medium within which the Sign(s,I||hash(R))||R is written to the particular selected event; (2) tendering the digital ticket for verification and for admission; (3) reading the Sign(s,I||hash(R))||R to an event computer and extracting the number R; (4) decrypting the remaining Sign(s, I||hash(R)) with verification key v of the ticket producer to get hash(R) and I; (5) re-calculating from R, with the same one-way function previously used, a re-calculated hash(R); then, having this recalculated hash(R) to hand; (6) comparing the re-calculated hash(R) to the extracted hash(R). The (4) decrypting will work, producing a proper I for the selected event, and the (6) comparing will be equal, only for a legitimate ticket.