[Cryptography] Best internet crypto clock

[Ben Laurie]

On 5 October 2014 00:14, Henry Baker <hbaker1 at pipeline.com> wrote:
> It would be nice to have an in-the-clear/public Internet database with the following properties:
>
> 1.  The database is readonly, appendonly.
>
> 2.  Everyone sees the same database, and can "easily" ("without inordinate amount of effort") check this (somehow).
>
> 3.  Everyone can easily see _every element of this database_, and thus there is no possibility of tampering or censorship.
>
> 4.  Because everything is cross-hashed in various ways, it becomes impossible to delete any information in this blockchain.
>
> 5.  Because everything is cross-hashed & cross-coded in various ways, it becomes impossible to "redact" any information in this database.  I.e., you can't even follow the chain without having _every bit_ of every item in the portion of the chain you're trying to follow.
>
> 6.  If someone comes up with a piece of data that purports to come from this database, it should be easy to check this database that the data is indeed already there.
>
> 7.  Everyone -- in the sec.gov case "every public company" -- can submit an addition to this database.  Yes, there are issues about proper authentication of the submission to make sure that it is indeed from that public company, but this is garden-variety PKE.
>
> sec.gov itself is a pretty good example where such a database makes sense.  Everything is supposed to be public; so now all we need is to make sure that it can never be tampered with--even by someone at the SEC.  If someone submits a report in error, the error can be explained, but will remain ever-after in this database.  The possibilities and harm from corruption are orders-of-magnitude more than the harm/embarrassment from repaired errors, so that such an incorruptible database is essential.
>
> The same idea could be used in a wide variety of instances where there is a "server" and "people" to be served.  The order-of-arrival of the people served by the server is completely arbitrary, but once this serving order has occurred, it is completely nailed down into a linear order that can't later be spoofed.

This is essentially the Certificate Transparency mechanism.