Author: Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 2022-06-14 17:15:08
Published on: 2022-06-14T17:15:08+00:00
The writer is replying to Peter regarding emails that they perceive as disruptive trolling. They mention the importance of real timestamping and how Bitcoin has been used for this purpose since the start of cryptocurrency. They believe that OpenTimestamps (OTS) does not provide the same service and that it seems misleading, given its prominence. Peter suggests that including enough cryptographic information in the original OP_RETURN would negate the need for publicizing the .ots file. The writer agrees but notes that the OTS approach hashes a private nonce for every document, making it impossible for anyone to validate the earliness of an item in a merkle tree without access to every proof. They suggest publicising nonces and document hashes with user consent and creating a tool for non-developers to pay funds to write a strong timestamp and discern the earliness of timestamped data. Peter mentions that client-side validated .ots files are necessary for scalability, but the writer thinks that the data could be publicised elsewhere or funds provided to store it on-chain. They discuss timestamping 750 million items from the Internet Archive with a single transaction and suggest putting the files in a shared datalad repository and putting the tip commit of the repository in an OP_RETURN along with a tag such as 'DL' or 'IA'. However, if the hash cannot be verified by an anonymous observer, the archive is only timestamped for people with the proof. The writer also notes that if someone can destroy your .ots proof, the information on the blockchain no longer demonstrates anything.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T22:14:04.520866+00:00