Author: Brian McQueen 2011-10-16 14:01:46
Published on: 2011-10-16T14:01:46+00:00
The concept of time-released cryptography has been introduced, which involves encrypting files that cannot be decrypted until a particular future date. A simple model, known to be inadequate, is demonstrated where Cryptoclock provides a list of unique public keys on a calendar, one for each day out into the future. Each day, the hosting site releases the associated private key for the current day, allowing all files encrypted with the associated public key to be decrypted when the key of the day is released. However, there are problems with this approach that need to be addressed, such as securing the private keys and making them unavailable to anyone other than the owner.A proposed P2P solution involves key sharding to distribute private keys in pieces to any number of nodes, known only by their bitcoin addresses. The transactions have to be of the contract variety to eliminate the risk of distributing the key. A future-dated transaction needs to be created to get the keys to return to the key creator on the target date, and they must be crafted in such a way that the shard-holders are paid at the time the keyshard is reclaimed, producing an incentive to stay online and keep the keyshards in the network. Participants are paid to participate, and the key returns automatically to the file owner on the desired date.The proposed P2P solution uses bitcoin in a legitimate way, using real bitcoin transactions and putting the bitcoin engine to work and leveraging its financial engine to establish a reasonable expense/reward system. The block chain has only one extra, short message for the initial transaction, and all application data is transacted outside the block chain and stored outside the block chain. However, peer discovery mechanisms need to be fleshed out, such as establishing an IRC channel for address discovery or users could establish their own trusted network of associates.
Updated on: 2023-06-04T20:35:39.048583+00:00