Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

proofofexistence.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 86 posts

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#61

Post by wyager »

martin_ wrote: post #30

A couple of great developers from HackTX a couple of weeks back created something similar during the hackathon there in just 24 hours. https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/hacktx/hacks/proveme with a demo copy @ http://162.242.216.46/

I'm one of the two developers.

I got the proof server working again so you can play with it.

Try proving data and typing in "testing" (lowercase). It will tell you when we put it in the blockchain. This file should also work: http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/filepicker%2FvCleswcKTpuRX...

It's a little patchy, but it does work! Payments are fake, and don't do anything! So don't pay! I don't know how much our Bitcoin wallet has left in it. I'll try to remember what we've uploaded so you can try it out.

Bitcoin/crypto code here: https://github.com/wyager/hacktx-proveme

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#62

Post by wyager »

taway2012 wrote: post #28

Couple questions. 1) AFAIK, bitcoin has "comments" within transactions. Why not embed the checksum as a comment in a transaction between wallets you control? 2) In the approach described here, no coins are being sent with the transaction (right?). Are blockchain participants really accepting NOP transactions involving 0 BTC transfers. Maybe I missed something. 3) As others pointed out, requiring the whole file to be…

You can put "comments" (raw text) in the transactions. I have done so. Try piping the blockchain database into the unix util `strings` and you will see some. It is a non-standard transaction, and I don't know if they're still allowed.

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#63

Post by wyager »

My friend and I did this as well for a hackathon (HackTX) a few days ago!

162.242.216.46

Try proving data and typing in "testing" (lowercase). It will tell you when we put it in the blockchain. This file should also work: http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/filepicker%2FvCleswcKTpuRX...

Here is our bitcoin/crypto stuff. https://github.com/wyager/hacktx-proveme

It's not up to my usual quality because we did it in 24 hours with a sleep break! Please don't judge me on this :p

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#65

Post by emhs »

AsymetricCom wrote: post #41
diminish wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was developing a similar online notary. My idea is to timestamp open code, docs etc create a prior case database against patent trolls and goliaths.

Now I just have to trust their hashing algorithm..

Hashing is performed locally, probably via crypto.js, so you can verify it, I'd wager.

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#66

Post by [deleted] »

bjt wrote: post #56
nwh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will this have legal weight? I doubt it. If I have to fax something for it to be a legal document, such an antiquated system will ignore any advances made around it.

The law doesn't pretend that signatures and fax machines are magic. Contracts written on bar napkins can be enforced. Any time you introduce evidence, you have to establish its credibility. The first time a signing system like this is used it's likely to take the court some time to understand, but there's no legal doctrine forbidding it. Source: I am a (not practicing anymore) lawyer.

[deleted]

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#67

Post by maraoz »

shabble wrote: post #19
lucisferre wrote: post #8

Can anyone eli5 exactly what this accomplishes. What sort of scenario would this work for. I'm assuming some sort of legal purposes.

It's a way to use the bitcoin blockchain as a non-centralised way to record the fact that you were in possession of a particular file at a particular time, without exposing what that file is, or who you are. The problem has been around for a long time, especially when dealing with semi-intangibles like Priority for scientific discoveries, or proof of first invention for patents[1] One solution is to present proof to…

Great explanation man, can I borrow it for the site if I credit you? (I'm the developer).

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#68

Post by toomuchtodo »

shabble wrote: post #19
lucisferre wrote: post #8

Can anyone eli5 exactly what this accomplishes. What sort of scenario would this work for. I'm assuming some sort of legal purposes.

It's a way to use the bitcoin blockchain as a non-centralised way to record the fact that you were in possession of a particular file at a particular time, without exposing what that file is, or who you are. The problem has been around for a long time, especially when dealing with semi-intangibles like Priority for scientific discoveries, or proof of first invention for patents[1] One solution is to present proof to…

I hope you take a moment to post this to /r/bitcoin.

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#69

Post by DanielRibeiro »

machrider wrote: post #17

This idea is generally called "trusted timestamping": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping One example would be to take a photo of a rental car showing damage at the time you rented it and be able to prove it was taken at that time. Then the rental company cannot later claim you caused the damage. This is a pretty clever use of the blockchain as a publicly-visible and authenticated timestamp. This way, t…

Naval, founder of Angel List, has described[1] this and many other excitign usages of Bitcoin, going beyond basic money transfer:

Everyone has a copy of the Bitcoin block chain, so anyone can verify your transactions. You can write software that will crawl the block chain and generate automatic accounting histories for tax and verification purposes. You can engaged in “Trusted Timestamping” – take a cryptographic signature of any document, timestamp it, and put it into the block chain. Anyone can verify that the document existed at a given time. If you sign the document with your private key and another party signs it with theirs, it becomes an undeniable mutually-signed contract. This entirely eliminates notaries and websites like https://www.proofofexistence.com/ are showing the concept. The Namecoin project is building a distributed Domain Name System that allocates and resolve Domain Names without needing ICANN or Verisign, by using the block chain to establish proof-of-ownership.

Really worth a read.

[1] http://startupboy.com/2013/11/07/bitcoin-the-internet-of-mon...

Re: Service lets you "certify" a document using the Bitcoin blockchain

#70

Post by diminish »

nl wrote: post #57
diminish wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was developing a similar online notary. My idea is to timestamp open code, docs etc create a prior case database against patent trolls and goliaths.

Are there any documented cases where that would help? It seems to me that the real problem is convincing a jury that a prior piece of work is related to a patented piece of work.

yes you might be right, NIST standardized timestamping methods are themselves full of patents. And I believe Jury would accept only those + a certified authority which would want to be testify in front of Jury.
Post reply on HN