For this to be a chain, it would have to be published multiple times, each time containing references to previous blocks under the published hash.
Other than that I am pretty sure we can find many more examples. Hashing and publishing the hash is pretty popular way to prove timestamp of a secret without revealing the secret, yet. I did it myself a couple of times when I wanted to be able to prove later that I had a particular information before some specific time.
> a copy of that seal and every other seal created by Surety’s customers is sent to the AbsoluteProof “universal registry database,” which is a “hash-chain” composed entirely of Surety customer seals. This creates an immutable record of all the Surety seals ever produced, so that it is impossible for the company or any malicious actor to modify a seal.
Another well known example of course is git (which slightly extends the definition to a directed acyclic graph).
Just a hash chain, pretty sure one can find much older ones. some old checksums might do that too. When someone says blockchain, in my book (and this might differ from others) - its about the consensus algorithm used to prevent tampering, like POW as introduced by Bitcoin.
I agree with you that your definition is what we should define a blockchain as, as Natamoto defined it. However, I'm afraid to say probably the majority of companies that claim they use blockchain probably use something very close to Git instead, or even just a digital signature or a hash function. Seriously, it's ridiculous.
Imagine if Google called certificate transparency blockchain? Journalists would lose their shit. Such an easy article to write. In fact, Google explicitly say on their website that they're kinda against the hype: http://www.certificate-transparency.org/general-transparency "These technologies are strongly related to the much-hyped blockchain. The reality, of course, is that there isn't a "the" blockchain, and that decentralisation is not always the answer. We are not making "the" blockchain, and we do not claim to support decentralisation."
I'll never forget my first job the business people wanted to investigate "the blockchain" and the yes men came up with a bunch of PoCs. I just asked "how is this different to Git?" Such an awkward moment.
I think the most general thing you could say is monadic mutations of some global state. Blocks act as operators on this state. I don't necessarily think it has to be a consensus algorithm. It can be used as that though.
This isn't exactly new, and not only for the reason in the article - Check out NetNotary from back around that time, too: They published their checksums daily in the WSJ, IIRC. Could be wrong, but I seem to recall NetNotary was a Marshall Rose/Carl Malamud project...
i don't see evidence that it's really a block-chain since the data are not dependent on the previous block, i.e. it's not a linked list ("chain") data structure.
Hi, ex-CEO of Surety here. The article is not very technical so I can see where you might assume this is not a true blockchain. However, the hash value published in the Times was, in fact, dependent upon every single hash value for every digital "document" ever submitted to the Digital Notary Service.
A Digital Notary client application would submit a hash value (which in the early days was a combination of MD5 and SHA-1 but the system was very flexible in that it could upgrade the hash algos when more collision resistant versions became available) that would become part of a Merkle tree along with any other client submissions received in a short timeframe. The parent "top hash" node of the Merkle tree was then hashed with the the last value in a linked list referred to internally as the "super hash" chain to create a new end value in the chain.
The client application would receive a notary "certificate" containing all the values in the Merkle tree required to re-calculate the hash woven into the super hash chain along with the timestamp for the moment it became part of the chain. The client application could use this certificate at any time to electronically verify the veracity of any "document" (i.e., guarantee that the document existed in its exact form at a specific point in time.)
On a side note, the algorithms and implementation were successfully tested in court cases. (Some of Surety's customers used the system to timestamp millions of documents turned over in electronic legal discovery to ensure they were not tampered with by opposing counsel.)
The New York Times value was only significant in that if could be used to "manually" calculate the veracity of the notary certificate by hashing the super hash value it contained with all subsequent values in the super hash chain until it resulted in the hash value published in the Times. This "widely witnessed" approach made it impossible for an insider to collude with someone to generate a correct notary certificate retroactively by replacing the document with a forgery.
The blockchain technology used by crypto currencies is similar except for the tremendous amount of computation required to generate a "correct" hash value to close out a block and weave it into the chain.
Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta deserve a lot of credit for creating this when were working for Bellcore. Two brilliant guys.
It doesn't have to be. The purpose of chaining in the blockchain is to establish an unspoofable temporal ordering of events. In the case of the NYT, you can just look at the date on the paper, so chaining isn't strictly necessary.
Widespread use of this technology would be a problem for government, since it would be difficult to insert fake records to create "legends" for undercover detectives, spies, and people in witness protection, etc.
Widespread use of Facebook might have a much more significant effect, because people don't usually memorialize all of their life events in a public digital notary service but often do so with social media.
I bet counterintelligence agencies are scraping social media and the web in order to see whether some travelers' identities are lacking in (or contradicted by) historical online documentation.
No the oldest block chain was invented by Acient Greeks, take Homer's Odyssey and Iliad. They are similar to blockchain as follows:
- Memorization of whole piece == Proof of work
- You need lots of people to agree upon the story == 51 % of nodes
- You can only append to the piece, because many others know and have memorized the piece so they will not agree to your version.
Initially I thought this was commissioned advertising, and it did read as such.
However, the ex-CEO has mentioned that it only operates for existing customers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17865294), which conflicts with that view somewhat, so maybe this isn't an ad.
In any case; where can I view 1995 copies of NYT for free? :)
I believe the company is only active in that it still operates its service for existing customers. The website is very old, but you're right, it's admittedly ironic that a computer security company has an HTTP website.
[+] [-] lmilcin|7 years ago|reply
For this to be a chain, it would have to be published multiple times, each time containing references to previous blocks under the published hash.
Other than that I am pretty sure we can find many more examples. Hashing and publishing the hash is pretty popular way to prove timestamp of a secret without revealing the secret, yet. I did it myself a couple of times when I wanted to be able to prove later that I had a particular information before some specific time.
[+] [-] sorokod|7 years ago|reply
This statement could be made much more interesting and convincing if you provided some actual examples.
[+] [-] phyzome|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FabHK|7 years ago|reply
> a copy of that seal and every other seal created by Surety’s customers is sent to the AbsoluteProof “universal registry database,” which is a “hash-chain” composed entirely of Surety customer seals. This creates an immutable record of all the Surety seals ever produced, so that it is impossible for the company or any malicious actor to modify a seal.
Another well known example of course is git (which slightly extends the definition to a directed acyclic graph).
[+] [-] 0xfffff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Moodles|7 years ago|reply
Imagine if Google called certificate transparency blockchain? Journalists would lose their shit. Such an easy article to write. In fact, Google explicitly say on their website that they're kinda against the hype: http://www.certificate-transparency.org/general-transparency "These technologies are strongly related to the much-hyped blockchain. The reality, of course, is that there isn't a "the" blockchain, and that decentralisation is not always the answer. We are not making "the" blockchain, and we do not claim to support decentralisation."
I'll never forget my first job the business people wanted to investigate "the blockchain" and the yes men came up with a bunch of PoCs. I just asked "how is this different to Git?" Such an awkward moment.
[+] [-] sametmax|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foxes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dublin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Groxx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phyzome|7 years ago|reply
(It's also possible that each published hash is just a brand new hash of the aggregate, but this seems somewhat less likely based on the wording.)
ETA: Looks like it's a chain, or rather a Merkle tree. From the horse's mouth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17865168
[+] [-] dnautics|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JWett|7 years ago|reply
A Digital Notary client application would submit a hash value (which in the early days was a combination of MD5 and SHA-1 but the system was very flexible in that it could upgrade the hash algos when more collision resistant versions became available) that would become part of a Merkle tree along with any other client submissions received in a short timeframe. The parent "top hash" node of the Merkle tree was then hashed with the the last value in a linked list referred to internally as the "super hash" chain to create a new end value in the chain.
The client application would receive a notary "certificate" containing all the values in the Merkle tree required to re-calculate the hash woven into the super hash chain along with the timestamp for the moment it became part of the chain. The client application could use this certificate at any time to electronically verify the veracity of any "document" (i.e., guarantee that the document existed in its exact form at a specific point in time.)
On a side note, the algorithms and implementation were successfully tested in court cases. (Some of Surety's customers used the system to timestamp millions of documents turned over in electronic legal discovery to ensure they were not tampered with by opposing counsel.)
The New York Times value was only significant in that if could be used to "manually" calculate the veracity of the notary certificate by hashing the super hash value it contained with all subsequent values in the super hash chain until it resulted in the hash value published in the Times. This "widely witnessed" approach made it impossible for an insider to collude with someone to generate a correct notary certificate retroactively by replacing the document with a forgery.
The blockchain technology used by crypto currencies is similar except for the tremendous amount of computation required to generate a "correct" hash value to close out a block and weave it into the chain.
Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta deserve a lot of credit for creating this when were working for Bellcore. Two brilliant guys.
[+] [-] dreamcompiler|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Merrill|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schoen|7 years ago|reply
I bet counterintelligence agencies are scraping social media and the web in order to see whether some travelers' identities are lacking in (or contradicted by) historical online documentation.
[+] [-] bits-and-bolts|7 years ago|reply
- Memorization of whole piece == Proof of work - You need lots of people to agree upon the story == 51 % of nodes - You can only append to the piece, because many others know and have memorized the piece so they will not agree to your version.
[+] [-] galaxyLogic|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigiain|7 years ago|reply
We'll start selling space in the coinbase field to real estate advertisers and escort services!
'The Times 03/Jan/2009: room to rent in 3br share house in The Mission, $2600/month+utilities'
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] exikyut|7 years ago|reply
However, the ex-CEO has mentioned that it only operates for existing customers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17865294), which conflicts with that view somewhat, so maybe this isn't an ad.
In any case; where can I view 1995 copies of NYT for free? :)
[+] [-] jwfxpr|7 years ago|reply
Every public library in the United States, if I'm not mistaken, and a large number of major libraries worldwide.
[+] [-] ThrustVectoring|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gpvos|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liftbigweights|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asasidh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fooker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcarlton0|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JWett|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andreofthecape|7 years ago|reply