Merkle Tree Authentication for Batched User Action Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Verifying the authenticity of actions on social media platforms, such as posts, comments, and likes, has become increasingly difficult due to the prevalence of automated bots and deep fakes, making it challenging to maintain the integrity of user interactions.
Innovation Solution
A distributed storage and authentication system utilizing authorized computing nodes that create a decentralized and immutable record of actions on the platform, employing Merkle trees to verify actions through a blockchain, ensuring the authenticity of user interactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional centralized storage methods are used for social media data actions, then the system operation is simple and easy to manage, but the reliability and authenticity verification of user actions deteriorates due to vulnerability to bots and deep fakes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a blockchain as an intermediary layer between the social media platform and users. The blockchain stores immutable records of user actions through Merkle trees, serving as a trusted mediator that verifies authenticity without requiring complex centralized verification systems. The smart contract acts as an automated intermediary that handles verification logic, reducing the need for complex manual verification processes while maintaining high reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces traditional centralized mechanical verification systems with cryptographic mechanisms. Instead of relying on complex centralized authentication infrastructure, the system uses Merkle tree hashing and blockchain cryptographic proofs to verify user actions. This substitution of mechanical verification with cryptographic verification maintains reliability while actually simplifying the underlying system architecture.
2Reliability
If all user actions are verified individually in real-time, then the authenticity of each action is ensured, but the processing time and computational resources increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual user actions into a single Merkle tree structure, where numerous leaf nodes (individual actions) are combined into a single root hash. This allows the system to verify the authenticity of multiple actions simultaneously through a single cryptographic proof, dramatically reducing verification time while maintaining the integrity of each individual action. The batch verification approach preserves verification accuracy while eliminating the need for sequential individual verification.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary grouping and hashing of user actions into Merkle trees before final verification. By pre-organizing actions into batches and computing their Merkle roots in advance, the system prepares verification data ahead of time, reducing the computational burden and time required during actual verification processes. This preliminary structuring enables faster real-time verification without sacrificing accuracy.
3Stability of the object's composition
If a decentralized blockchain system is implemented for storing user actions, then the immutability and trustworthiness of records is improved, but the device complexity and implementation difficulty increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex blockchain implementation details into a separate, standardized layer. By using established blockchain protocols and smart contract frameworks, the invention removes the need to rebuild blockchain functionality from scratch, reducing implementation complexity while maintaining immutability. The Merkle tree structure is extracted as a standardized data organization method that can be implemented across different blockchain platforms, simplifying the overall system deployment.
4Productivity
If Merkle trees are used to batch process user actions, then the verification efficiency is improved, but the computational complexity for generating and verifying trees increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements partial verification where only the Merkle root and relevant path proofs are computed and stored, rather than maintaining the complete Merkle tree structure for verification. This partial action approach computes only the necessary cryptographic elements needed for verification, significantly reducing computational complexity while maintaining high verification throughput. The system performs excessive computation during batch creation (when resources are abundant) and minimal verification during validation (when speed is critical).
Data Source
AI summary
An authorized computing device receives indications of data actions taken end users on a user platform. Each data action is selected from a group comprising an edit action, a create action, or a delete action. The authorized computing device collects the data actions to form a batch of data actions. The batch of data actions include data actions that have occurred within a range of time. The authorized computing device generates a Merkle tree corresponding to the batch of data actions. Each leaf of the Merkle tree is associated with a respective data action in the batch of data actions. The authorized computing device published a root node of the Merkle tree to a smart contract associated with the user platform on a blockchain. The root node of the Merkle tree is used to verify individual data actions in the batch of data actions.