Testing with blockchain

Petter Reinholdtsen pere at hungry.com
Tue Feb 7 14:32:27 CET 2017


[Thomas Sødring]
> I have an open mind about this. I'm not convinced it's necessary, but
> it's relatively quick and cheap to show a proof-of-concept. A lot of
> the discussion was about avoiding the hype-factor and trying to
> identify if and where block-chain is relevant.

Is it clear what kind of problem we are trying to solve here?

The trusted timestamp mechanism can be used to prove for those with
access to the archive that some data (say the archived PDF) existed at a
given point in time and have not been modified by anyone without the
secret key of the timestamp service.  In other words, it can prove the
archive is unmodified to anyone with the public key of the timestamp
service.

What you talk about here seem to be solving a different problem:

> What I like about this is that as soon as a document is registered in
> a core, a record will be available in a distributed fashion. Sneaky
> people can't pretend the document isn't there. So maybe I can register
> a document before it hits OEP, even though I may not be able to
> publish title.
>
> The downside is that let's say a Child Protection Agency document with
> some metadata is published on a block chain it will probably be
> impossible to erase an accidental publication. I awlays find it's
> easier to discuss things when there's a practical implementation.

This seem to discuss proving that some document actually made it into
the archive.  Is that a problem worth solving?  If so, why?

> I read this before, it's interesting and definitely something I will
> consider. If block-chain can't give anything more than trusted
> timestamping, then following it is just hype!

I am quite sure it isn't 'just hype', as it has many very useful
applications.  But I do not quite understand which problem it would
solve for a public archive.

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen


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