This describes something from Surety, LLC. Too bad their web page doesn't have https. Hard to take them as seriously. http://surety.com/
The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
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Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#12i don't see evidence that it's really a block-chain since the data are not dependent on the previous block, i.e. it's not a linked list ("chain") data structure.
Hi, ex-CEO of Surety here. The article is not very technical so I can see where you might assume this is not a true blockchain. However, the hash value published in the Times was, in fact, dependent upon every single hash value for every digital "document" ever submitted to the Digital Notary Service. A Digital Notary client application would submit a hash value (which in the early days was a combination of MD5 and S…
The “block” in blockchain is due to it being a byzantine fault tolerant replicated state machine. If it were centralised there would be no need for a block. That may be the main distinguishing characteristic. Git is another example of an application running on a hash chain, but it doesn’t have blocks because it doesn’t require a slow / costly consensus process.
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#13This describes something from Surety, LLC. Too bad their web page doesn't have https. Hard to take them as seriously. http://surety.com/
I believe the company is only active in that it still operates its service for existing customers. The website is very old, but you're right, it's admittedly ironic that a computer security company has an HTTP website.
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#14Is there actually any chaining going on, or is this a standard "trusted timestamp"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping
The article doesn't make it totally explicit, but it sure sounds like each new hash incorporated the previous one.
(It's also possible that each published hash is just a brand new hash of the aggregate, but this seems somewhat less likely based on the wording.)
ETA: Looks like it's a chain, or rather a Merkle tree. From the horse's mouth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17865168
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#15Bitcoin's innovation was trust and conflict resolution through proof of work, not linked lists of hashes.
There is difference between bitcoin and blockchain. A blockchain is, by definition, a linked list of hashes.
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#16Just a hash chain, pretty sure one can find much older ones. some old checksums might do that too. When someone says blockchain, in my book (and this might differ from others) - its about the consensus algorithm used to prevent tampering, like POW as introduced by Bitcoin.
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#17Bitcoin's innovation was trust and conflict resolution through proof of work, not linked lists of hashes.
There is difference between bitcoin and blockchain. A blockchain is, by definition, a linked list of hashes.
That's just called a hash chain, Bitcoin I believe just calls it a chain of hashes. The block data structure incl. salt and POW is what is so unique about Bitcoin.
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#18Just a hash chain, pretty sure one can find much older ones. some old checksums might do that too. When someone says blockchain, in my book (and this might differ from others) - its about the consensus algorithm used to prevent tampering, like POW as introduced by Bitcoin.
I think the most general thing you could say is monadic mutations of some global state. Blocks act as operators on this state. I don't necessarily think it has to be a consensus algorithm. It can be used as that though.
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#19Widespread use of this technology would be a problem for government, since it would be difficult to insert fake records to create "legends" for undercover detectives, spies, and people in witness protection, etc.
Widespread use of Facebook might have a much more significant effect, because people don't usually memorialize all of their life events in a public digital notary service but often do so with social media.
I bet counterintelligence agencies are scraping social media and the web in order to see whether some travelers' identities are lacking in (or contradicted by) historical online documentation.
Re: The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, ex-CEO of Surety here. The article is not very technical so I can see where you might assume this is not a true blockchain. However, the hash value published in the Times was, in fact, dependent upon every single hash value for every digital "document" ever submitted to the Digital Notary Service. A Digital Notary client application would submit a hash value (which in the early days was a combination of MD5 and S…
The “block” in blockchain is due to it being a byzantine fault tolerant replicated state machine. If it were centralised there would be no need for a block. That may be the main distinguishing characteristic. Git is another example of an application running on a hash chain, but it doesn’t have blocks because it doesn’t require a slow / costly consensus process.
Feels a bit like that's a post-facto argument to me.
It sounds like the Surity thing had "blocks" consisting of a week's worth of documents which got chained together and had their hash published irrevocably every week.
Without the subsequent invention and popularity of the specific implementation of the bitcoin blockchain - I don't think the slow/costly consensus "feature" could be considered a requirement to distinguish between "hash chains" and "block chains" like that.
(But I'm regularly on the losing side of nomenclature arguments - I'm still pissed at all the people who've decided they should call my non-autonomous quadcopters "drones"...)