Blockchain Records with Third-Party Signatures for High-Risk Content
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing blockchain systems lack robust mechanisms to prevent the insertion of malicious content and ensure long-term integrity and authenticity, particularly in the absence of a permissioning entity, making them vulnerable to advanced persistent threats and potential attacks that undermine trust and viability.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a blockchain system with off-chain storage, third-party digital signatures, and out-of-band date proof to validate timestamps, ensuring independent verification and tracking pedigree of digital content, thereby enhancing resistance to advanced persistent threats and maintaining authenticity and integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a permissioning entity is used to manage blockchain growth and filter content, then the blockchain provides enhanced trust and resistance to malicious content, but the system requires centralized control and may be vulnerable to single point of failure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a third-party certification entity as an intermediary that issues digital signatures certifying the authenticity and integrity of blockchain records. This mediator operates independently from the permissioning entity, providing additional trust layer without requiring direct control over the blockchain operations, thus resolving the contradiction between needing centralized management and avoiding single point of failure
Solution Approach 2:
The system separates the blockchain management functions into distinct components: a permissioning entity that manages blockchain growth and content filtering, and a separate third-party certification entity that provides digital signatures. This segmentation allows each component to operate independently, enhancing overall system reliability while distributing control responsibilities
2Productivity
If blockchain stores only hash values with off-chain storage, then the blockchain remains compact and scalable, but additional verification steps are required to ensure content integrity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses hash values as digital fingerprints or copies of the actual content stored off-chain. These hash copies are stored on the blockchain and serve as verifiable references without requiring the full content to be stored on-chain, enabling scalability while maintaining integrity through the hash verification process
Solution Approach 2:
The third-party digital signature acts as an intermediary verification mechanism that validates the hash values and their corresponding off-chain content. This signature layer simplifies the verification process by providing a cryptographic guarantee of integrity without requiring complex multi-step verification procedures
3Measurement precision
If out-of-band date proof is used to establish no-later-than dates, then independent verification of timestamp accuracy is enabled, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces out-of-band date proof as an intermediary verification mechanism that independently validates timestamps. This date proof, provided by a trusted third party, serves as an external reference that confirms the no-later-than date without requiring complex internal verification procedures, thus enhancing precision while managing complexity
4Reliability
If digital signatures are used to certify content authenticity, then trust in high-risk digital content is enhanced, but the system requires additional infrastructure and processing
Solution Approach 1:
The third-party certification entity serves as an intermediary that issues digital signatures to certify content authenticity. This mediator uses established cryptographic infrastructure and standardized procedures, enhancing trust in high-risk content while avoiding the need for complex custom verification systems by leveraging existing security protocols
Data Source
AI summary
A permissioned blockchain, using off-chain storage, provides advantages over blockchains that rely on consensus and/or store information within the blockchain. Advantages include enhanced viability, compactness, and the ability to register material with distribution limitations (e.g., military classified). Examples create an immutable public record of data signatures that confirm when data is intact, without distributing the data itself, so that widespread availability of the blockchain (beyond those privileged to see the data) advantageously increases the size of the community that is able to detect spoofing or forgery attempts. A permissioning entity limits submissions to manage blockchain growth, foreclosing problematic material that may risk long-term viability. Examples render blockchain operations resistant to advanced persistent threats (APTs), leverage digital signatures as additional trust elements for high-risk data, link records to track pedigree and enable identification of superseded (obsolete) data, and leverage out-of-band date proof to enable independent verification of integrity and no-later-than data-of-existence.