The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation • Hacker News Board

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#321

Post by vidarh » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:36 PM UTC

natmaka wrote: post #292

vidarh wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem would be how you guarantee the release of the keys at a time in the future. If it was possible to create a "time-locked" blockchain vault would be interesting. I can't see any way of doing that which wouldn't boil down to taking bets on the speed of advances in computing, though. But that might be good enough if the goal is just to ensure it takes "long enough" rather than guarantee a specific amount of t…

As the archiver I first have to publish (once) the public part (key) of a Bitcoin address I own. To archive something I keep a copy (file) of it (it may be an archive storing many files), calculate some digest (let's say SHA512) of the file, then immediately publish the file on my archive-webserver, and its size (amount of octets) and digest an the existing and active blockchain (in this case: Bitcoin). As a courtesy…

I think this illustrates that there are many reasons to do this:

1. Your suggested approach handles provenance for data you yourself arranges to "open up" in the future.

2. Additionally people may want to ensure the longevity of the data - this is "easily" done by simply archiving all referenced archives multiple places.

3. Some people wants to ensure important data eventually will get released, but don't dare / can release it now and/or worry that they will be prevented from releasing it in the future (be that for a nefarious reason, or simply because you might die of natural causes before you get a chance).

The last case is what I meant by a "time locked" system. Being able to archive something now even though you're not prepared to publish it now in a way that doesn't require you to take complicated steps to guarantee that "someone" is trusted to release the right keys would be powerful.

What you suggest also have value, it just covers a different set of use cases.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#322

Post by johnchristopher » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 9:08 AM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #264

gwright wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is in-vogue, however, is to be a nazi (little n, colloquial meaning, because I know sometimes people like to be pedantic) amongst the American right and alt-right, as the current American President's election has coincided with a revival of right-wing populism and white supremacist identity politics. Can I offer a different perspective? A vocal minority on the left likes to assert that everyone on the right is…

As an european, seeing the american far right make a hold-up on so-called "western civ" is deeply unsettling. The thing they promote as rooted in "western civ" and say is shared among "westerners" is not related to anything I know here. It is also surprising to hear about the opposition to "multi-culturalism" when Europe has never had one single culture. So please if you want to promote that thing of yours, stop call…

Well... yeah... but now we have a Commissioner for the "European way of life". Last time I checked that same person ought to be the commissioner for immigration.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#323

Post by natmaka » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #321

natmaka wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the archiver I first have to publish (once) the public part (key) of a Bitcoin address I own. To archive something I keep a copy (file) of it (it may be an archive storing many files), calculate some digest (let's say SHA512) of the file, then immediately publish the file on my archive-webserver, and its size (amount of octets) and digest an the existing and active blockchain (in this case: Bitcoin). As a courtesy…

I think this illustrates that there are many reasons to do this: 1. Your suggested approach handles provenance for data you yourself arranges to "open up" in the future. 2. Additionally people may want to ensure the longevity of the data - this is "easily" done by simply archiving all referenced archives multiple places. 3. Some people wants to ensure important data eventually will get released, but don't dare / can…

Case 3 is indeed a non trivial one.

1/ put all those important to-be-published-later data in an archive

2/ obtain the archive SHA512 hash

3/ cypher the archive, using a symmetric-key algorithm and a a random key

4/ use secret sharing, with the key being the secret, with the adequate amount of redundancy (this is the most tricky part). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing

5/ give each part of the secret to some notary, and pay him to have it delivered to each member of a group of tech-savvy friends of yours. Chose unrelated notaries installed in different countries

6/ give the cyphered archive along with detailed instructions to each member of the group, in order for him to be able to rebuild the secret and then decrypt the archive. If they will have to act this way more than 10 years after receiving the instructions give them full "image systems" (a real machine!) storing all required software, ready to run

7/ publish the SHA512 hash (on archive.org?), sealed-signed by you, along with some explanation "At date X I, John Smith, created the archive whose digest is...". You may also publish the cyphered archive (this is not very useful and raises the risk)

8/ pray. The symmetrical cypher has to resist attacks during the timelapse, enough groupmembers have to survive long enough, image systems must be usable when time comes...