Distributed Computing Pool Work Provenance via Digital Signatures
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Solution Overview
Problem
Participating in mining pools is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, which can disrupt or steal valid submissions from computing devices, leading to potential reward theft and a lack of provenance verification for submitted work items.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for authenticating computing devices through username, password, and public key authentication, followed by job distribution and solution verification using digital signatures to confirm the provenance and integrity of submitted solutions, ensuring that rewards are allocated correctly among pool participants.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If computing pools distribute jobs to multiple participants, then productivity increases through parallel computation, but reliability decreases due to vulnerability to man-in-the-middle attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary authentication of computing devices before job distribution, establishing trusted relationships in advance. Public keys are exchanged and stored during an authentication phase before the actual mining operations begin, ensuring that only authorized devices can submit valid solutions.
Solution Approach 2:
Digital signatures act as an intermediary mechanism between the computing device and the pool server. The signature cryptographically binds the solution to the authenticated device identity, serving as a mediator that proves origin without requiring continuous direct verification during the computation process.
2Measurement precision
If digital signature verification is implemented, then provenance verification improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses public keys as verifiable copies of device identity that can be freely distributed and verified without compromising security. Instead of verifying the actual device presence, the system verifies cryptographic copies (signatures) that are computationally easy to check but secure against forgery.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces physical or manual verification mechanisms with cryptographic verification. Instead of requiring complex hardware trust or manual authentication, the system uses mathematical cryptography to automatically verify device identity through digital signatures, reducing operational complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for participating in and operating a distributed computing pool are disclosed. Computing pools combine computational resources from a plurality of computing devices over a network by splitting jobs into smaller jobs and distributing those smaller jobs to the computing devices so that they can be solved in parallel with little or no overlap in the work performed. The computing devices attempt to find solutions to the smaller jobs. Solutions found are signed and submitted back to the pool. The pool uses the signature to confirm the true origin of the solution and that the solution has not been tampered with.