Distributed Ledger Fingerprinting for Digital Content Authenticity

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Solution Overview

Problem

There is a growing need to authenticate and verify the authenticity of digital content such as photos, audio, and video in various industries and workflows, as tools like Photoshop and DeepFake can easily modify and deceive, leading to increased risks of fraud and misrepresentation.

Innovation Solution

The Attestiv system uses an authentication server that communicates with a distributed ledger to manage and validate digital assets by generating and storing fingerprints, allowing for the creation of a secure chain of custody and integration with existing workflows, utilizing AI and ML for additional content generation and metadata.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If digital content is stored and managed without a distributed ledger, then storage and access are simpler, but authenticity and provenance cannot be verified

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveauthenticity verificationVSAvoidsystem architecture

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a distributed ledger as an intermediary system between content creators and consumers. The ledger stores cryptographic hashes and metadata of digital content, serving as a neutral third-party verification mechanism that proves authenticity without requiring direct trust between parties. This resolves the contradiction by adding reliability through the mediator while keeping the complexity contained within the verification layer rather than the entire system.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary actions by generating cryptographic hashes and storing them in the distributed ledger at the moment of content creation or before distribution. This preliminary recording of authenticity data allows for rapid verification later without requiring complex real-time analysis, thus improving reliability while managing complexity through advance preparation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Reliability

If content authenticity verification is implemented, then fraud and misrepresentation are reduced, but processing time and computational resources increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvefraud preventionVSAvoidverification processing time

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of verifying the entire content file, the system creates and verifies cryptographic hash copies (fingerprints) of the content. These hash copies are stored in the distributed ledger and can be rapidly compared against the original content to verify authenticity. This copying approach dramatically reduces verification time and computational resources while maintaining strong fraud prevention capabilities.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces manual or complex mechanical verification processes with cryptographic algorithms and automated distributed ledger queries. The verification process substitutes human judgment and complex analysis with deterministic hash comparison and blockchain consensus mechanisms, reducing both time and computational overhead while improving reliability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

3Reliability

If a distributed ledger is used to store all content data, then authenticity is proven, but storage costs and network bandwidth requirements increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveprovenance trackingVSAvoiddata storage volume

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts only the essential verification data (cryptographic hashes, metadata, timestamps) from the full content files and stores these extracted elements in the distributed ledger. The actual large content files remain stored in traditional storage systems. This extraction approach provides provenance tracking and authenticity verification while avoiding the prohibitive storage costs and bandwidth requirements of storing all content data on the blockchain.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS11797519B2Atomic capture of a set of related files, using a distributed ledger, for proof of authenticity

Publication Date: 2023.10.24 ATTESTIV INC

AI summary

Techniques for proving authenticity of data files, such as digital photos. An authentication/indexing server content from a client device such as a mobile device, and generates or receives other related data such as a reference to the content object, a fingerprint for the content object, and other metadata indicating for example a timestamp related to the content object. The fingerprint is inserted into a distributed ledger, with the distributed ledger returning a ledger address. A manifest object containing the transaction object, the ledger address, and a list of the content object and, optionally, related edits is then created and stored. The server may index fingerprints. Thus, a fingerprint can be used to authenticate subsequently received object against the stored metadata.