[Cryptography] PacketCrypt: Bandwidth-hard proof of work

[Eugen Leitl]

This is best seen in context of community wireless mesh networks.

https://github.com/cjdelisle/PacketCrypt

PacketCrypt

Bandwidth-hard proof of work. Build Status

Abstract

Since the invention of blockchains, there has been research into how to make
the proof of work do something useful. Unfortunately, it has been remarkably
difficult to make the work useful without allowing miners to influence the
nature of the work problem to their own advantage, destroying the fairness of
the algorithm.

PacketCrypt takes a different approach, while the work done in PacketCrypt is
itself useless, PacketCrypt is designed to encourage investment into the
design and deployment of hardware which is useful for other purposes.

PacketCrypt encourages development of hardware solutions for high speed
encryption and decryption of messages about the size of an internet packet.
It also uses randomized code in order to encourage CPU mining as well as next
generation CPU design research. Perhaps most significantly, PacketCrypt
encourages cooperation between many mining devices, allowing bandwidth to be
expended in lieu of processor effort.