Digital Information Integrity Protection With Delay-Coded Verification
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for protecting digital information integrity are inefficient, energy-intensive, vulnerable to tampering, and lack effective computerized verification, especially in blockchain networks and security logs.
Innovation Solution
A method involving forming protection blocks from incoming data, creating digital descriptors, and generating delay-coding verification codes using memory-bound functions to ensure data integrity, with flexible function application and adaptable computation costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If Proof of Work computation is used to protect digital information integrity, then tamper resistance is improved, but energy consumption and computation time increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential verification function from the full Proof of Work computation. Instead of requiring complete PoW verification for all data, the system extracts and verifies only critical integrity checkpoints, significantly reducing energy consumption while maintaining tamper resistance for the most important data elements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different levels of protection to different data elements. Critical security logs and immutable records receive full PoW-level protection, while less critical data uses lighter verification mechanisms. This local differentiation maintains reliability for essential data while reducing overall energy consumption.
2Reliability
If blockchain peer-to-peer networks are used to share digital information, then distributed trust is improved, but data exposure to outsiders increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments data into different protection layers: public verification data that can be shared openly on the blockchain, and sensitive data that remains private. The blockchain stores only integrity proofs and verification hashes, while the actual sensitive information is kept in secure, access-controlled environments, thus maintaining distributed trust without exposing sensitive data.
3Productivity
If digital signatures are used to protect security logs, then verification speed is improved, but vulnerability to cryptographic control by attackers increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary hashing and integrity binding to security logs before they are signed. By pre-processing logs through cryptographic hash functions and binding them to immutable blockchain states, the system creates a layered defense where even if an attacker controls the signing key, they cannot retroactively alter previously bound logs without detection.
4Reliability
If write once read many memories are used for integrity protection data, then tamper resistance is improved, but storage capacity and reusability worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a cyclic integrity protection scheme where verification codes from completed verification cycles are discarded and the storage space is recovered for new verification data. This allows the same WORM storage resources to be reused continuously for ongoing integrity protection, maintaining tamper resistance while enabling long-term operational reusability.
Data Source
Figure 1~3
Figure 4a
Figure 4b
AI summary
A method and apparatus for integrity protecting data that include and perform: receiving as input data any new digital information from one or more sources; forming a protection block representing the input data received during a first period of time, if any; forming a digital descriptor using at least the protection block; and producing a delay-coding verification code based on the digital descriptor and a previous verification code.