Food Safety Hash Trees for Tamper-Resistant Lifecycle Traceability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for tracking food safety data lack tamper-resistance and efficiency, particularly in reducing data transmission over network connections, and do not effectively manage data across the entire food product lifecycle from production to consumption.
Innovation Solution
A network data processing system that utilizes hash trees for tracking food data transactions, including decentralized storage of food production data hash trees across multiple network storage devices, ensuring tamper-resistance and efficiency by appending food data transactions to a packaged food production data hash tree and creating cryptographic hash values for verification.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If food safety data is tracked using traditional centralized databases, then data access and management is simplified, but the system lacks tamper-resistance and vulnerability to unauthorized modifications increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments food safety data into discrete transactions and organizes them in a tree structure where each node represents a transaction or a hash of multiple transactions. This segmentation allows individual transactions to be verified independently while maintaining the integrity of the entire dataset through cryptographic hashing, achieving tamper-resistance without requiring a fully centralized system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces hash trees as an intermediary layer between the food packaging machines and the centralized database. Instead of directly storing and accessing raw food safety data, the system uses cryptographic hash values as intermediaries that verify data integrity without exposing the actual data content, thus providing tamper-resistance while maintaining manageable system complexity.
2Reliability
If complete food safety data sets are transmitted across the network for verification, then data integrity can be verified, but network bandwidth consumption and transmission time increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential verification element (cryptographic hash value) from the complete food safety data set. Instead of transmitting entire data records for verification, the system transmits and verifies only the hash values, which are much smaller in size. This extraction approach maintains data integrity verification capability while dramatically reducing network bandwidth consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial verification by checking only the hash values rather than complete data sets. This partial action approach provides sufficient verification for data integrity purposes without the excessive bandwidth consumption that would result from transmitting and verifying complete data sets across the network.
3Reliability
If food safety data is stored in a decentralized manner across multiple nodes, then tamper-resistance improves, but data access complexity and storage overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a nested structure where cryptographic hash values are embedded within the tree structure, with each node containing hashes of its child nodes. This nesting allows the system to store verification information efficiently within the data structure itself rather than requiring separate storage mechanisms, achieving decentralized tamper-resistance with minimal storage overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses cryptographic copying through hashing, where the hash function creates a compact representation of the data that can be stored and transmitted efficiently. Instead of storing multiple copies of the entire data set across decentralized nodes, the system stores compact hash copies that verify data integrity with minimal storage requirements.
4Productivity
If traditional data tracking methods are used, then implementation is straightforward, but the system cannot quickly identify all packages affected by a specific food safety incident
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-organizing food safety data in a tree structure with cryptographic hash relationships established in advance. When a food safety incident occurs, the system can quickly traverse the pre-established tree structure and identify affected packages without requiring complex real-time analysis, thus achieving fast traceability while the data structure complexity is managed through the systematic tree organization.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention provides a method for tracking food data transactions in a network data processing system comprising the steps of reading a network storage devices a packaged food production data hash tree, receiving a food data transaction from a hardware data processor in a food packaging machine, appending the food data transaction to the packaged food production data hash tree, and causing decentralised storage of identical instances of the appended packaged food production data hash tree in the plurality of network storage devices. The present invention further provides a network data processing system and a computer program for carrying out the method.