Got ideas for an open source project?
- Thread starter Truth.
- Start date
Is that site so hard to understand Matt? It makes a hash, 38 bytes in length, that absolutely proves your document was exactly as your copy says it was at a particular, timestamped time. That includes signatures, both the handwritten kind and the (much preferred) PGP kind.
Sending it with a satoshi on the blockchain backs that hash up for eternity in a way that every last human that will ever live can access, without fear of it ever being modified by anyone. Today's Notary Publics only dream of having such power. -In fact, I've met a few, they aren't a very imaginative lot, so I doubt that last statement too.
Let's say you want to make a "notarized" real estate deal. You're buying land from someone who wants your silly fiat Baht. At the time of the trade, you have a deed drawn up with the terms you both agree to, and then all you need to notarize the deal is to sign it with both of your PGP keys, Hashing it like they do on http://www.proofofexistence.com, and then send that hash somewhere on a satoshi. (I'm not sure if it matters who holds the satoshi, it's record will be imprinted on the timestamped blockchain forever.)
If there is ever any doubt who owns what or the terms of the agreement in the future, the document can be held by both parties and centrally (like in Bittorrent or Storj) deposited elsewhere... Making it absolutely pointless for anyone to try to modify/edit the document in any way... The checksum will show if you're lying.
The courts and law would like you to think so, definitely. But their way is totally inferior... Their documents can be fudged, their buildings can be burned down. A regime change, computer virus, or even just sloppy filing work can completely lose the notarized copy, and of course the notary officers themselves are only human, susceptible to threats, bribes, and all kinds of death.
The existing way of notarizing documents is just so... 20th century.
If you had my private key to sign it with, it would be an infinitely better way of doing so than we do now.
Check this article in Computerworld out about the concept:
Could the Bitcoin network be used as an ultrasecure notary service? - Computerworld
Kiopa, all it is is "I was in possession of this hash at this time, because I can prove that I own the bitcoin private key that created the transaction. I have a document which hashes to previously mentioned hash, therefore I assert that this document existed at the blockchains-specified time"
I find Luke's idea interesting but for copyright. Could a musician, author, photographer, etc hash and register their rendered works in the block chain and have that be a part of a copyright/trademark claim in the future?
Would presenting this method to a count be accepted or valid? What are the possibilities of collisions, meaning altering the works by tiny bits to render a hash previously registered and thus proving ownership falsely?
Obviously the odds would be unreasonably and incredibly low, but would they be sufficiently low as to have a court accept the block chain method as irrefutable evidence?
Interesting.
Would presenting this method to a count be accepted or valid? What are the possibilities of collisions, meaning altering the works by tiny bits to render a hash previously registered and thus proving ownership falsely?
Obviously the odds would be unreasonably and incredibly low, but would they be sufficiently low as to have a court accept the block chain method as irrefutable evidence?
Interesting.
A hacker would only have the key to prove ownership of the hashed value, but not the document that resolves to that hash. He would also need the scanned title to verify that. same for any other type of file. It's not storage, it's time stamping.
"All it is," eh? This is something extraordinary in the scheme of things.
Consider every way humanity has timestamped documents in the past; Notaries, lawyers, or public officials with witnesses have had to be there & inspect the document from end to end for all of the high-dollar timestamping/proof-of-existence methods in the past, and for the low-dollar timestamping, sometimes courts will accept a Post office stamped-envelope that has the date on the stamp... Of course paper envelopes, at least, can be steamed open and re-closed so it's not as widely accepted as people like to think.
What you can do here with the blockchain is essentially digitally mailing the document along with a copy of both signers' identification that is impossible to forge.
Before Satoshi figured out the byzantine general's solution, digitally mailing a document mean hitting the "copy" button. Things are different now; you can have a unique copy that lives in the cloud but cannot be forged, copied, nor edited at all. This is truly revolutionary.
Kinda... As an anarchist I'm totally against Intellectual Property though. I see IP as a kind of voodoo spell that should be eradicated entirely so mankind can get past this petty existence. Ownership of an idea or data is simply stupid and harmful to all men. -You'll find that most bitcoin-knowledgable programmers won't touch this idea for this reason.
But for the sake of conversation, the technical problem with a BitCopyright is that two different microphones recording the exact same song at the same time will have completely different-looking hashes... Making a copyright SEARCH impossible. (What's the point in copyrighting a song if no other artists can search their song against yours before copyrighting theirs?)
BitNotary is different because my exact document with my exact GPG key at the bottom of it will always hash exactly the same. If I change the number of spaces or correct a spelling mistake though, same problem applies, but at least there is a way to make them searchable.
They'd be orders of magnitude lower than any other conceivable way. 38 Bytes of SHA256 hash is kinda hard to coincidently duplicate, there happens to be more than a couple of variations to it... Like this many:
I can't speak for the judge, who we should assume is corrupt an anti-bitcoin anyway, but if he doesn't find a properly hashed BitCopyright proof then he's simply a moron who doesn't understand what real proof is.
Again, I'm not suggesting it be used as content storage, just time stamping the existence of it.
The content itself will be released in it's due time. Say a live band chooses to play an awesome song at shitty bar and a producer is there, records it and rips it for a more popular band.
If they were to do that, the band could technically have previously recorded a version, hashed and timestamped it on the block chain. Thus having a claim to that production in a court, instead of a he said she said claim.
Have you ever seen the movie grandma's boy? where an unreleased game tries to get ripped by the nerdy villain ? well this could prove ownership in that case instead of having a grandma battle a gamer to establish proof.
It's a stoner movie granted, but it shows a scenario where this could be useful.
Sure, as a pure timestamp, it would certainly do the trick.
There is no way in existence today to timestamp any data this securely. -Judges may not see that fact now, but they will have to in time because the experts that come to the bench will keep telling them so until they believe it.
There is no way in existence today to timestamp any data this securely. -Judges may not see that fact now, but they will have to in time because the experts that come to the bench will keep telling them so until they believe it.
