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Topic: Decentralized Timestamp - page 5. (Read 5325 times)

sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 257
bluemeanie
May 15, 2014, 09:46:05 PM
#12
In NXT for instance they are going to add a BOND system.  Bonds are the basic elementary component of credit systems and they have fairly simple qualities:  A PRINCIPAL, INTEREST, and MATURITY.

If the borrower fails to repay PRINCIPAL + INTEREST at time specified at MATURITY, then you have a DEFAULT.  So naturally how do we measure this event in a block chain?  In some cases loans might have a maturity of a few minutes, how can we make sure that the payment is made before the maturity time?  Can we express maturity in block depth?  Currently our discussions seem to indicate that there are no functional issues with having a loan maturity expressed in terms of block depth, the only drawback is that the borrower or lender might find these terms difficult to manage, but generally they work.

-bm
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 257
bluemeanie
May 15, 2014, 09:35:04 PM
#11
a commercially available atomic clock chip:  http://www.microsemi.com/products/timing-synchronization-systems/embedded-timing-solutions/components/sa-45s-chip-scale-atomic-clock

so we don't need the sun.  The problem is very specific to our application because in finance there is an incentive to defraud, it's not just a matter of coordination(a problem that has been solved in many different ways) but also a problem of certification.  It's a bit difficult but my concept descends from Vector Clocks.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_clock

it's not top secret or anything just would rather discuss with an audience who has some familiarity with these problems.

-bm
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
May 15, 2014, 09:32:40 PM
#10
from an adoption point of view, atomic clocks arent that much better.
anyone can run a bitcoin node from an ordinary computer
and i think might be important.
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 257
bluemeanie
May 15, 2014, 09:25:38 PM
#9
re: specialized hardware that uses the sun.

interesting... but this sounds way harder to implement
than running ASICs farms....possibly so much so that
it would be hard to gain traction at least presently...right?

you could use some sort of atomic clock to determine objective time and this solves the problem if inaccuracy, but does not solve the problem of FRAUD.

-bm
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
May 15, 2014, 09:17:00 PM
#8
re: specialized hardware that uses the sun.

interesting... but this sounds way harder to implement
than running ASICs farms....possibly so much so that
it would be hard to gain traction at least presently...right?
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 257
bluemeanie
May 15, 2014, 09:06:43 PM
#7
oh and decentralized timestamping CAN BE DONE and it CAN BE ADDED TO NXT.     Roll Eyes

-bm
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 257
bluemeanie
May 15, 2014, 08:59:03 PM
#6
Using hash-chain mediated common view time transfer, as I wrote in 2011: https://people.xiph.org/~greg/decentralized-time.txt

Quote
Preferably not Proof of Work.
Your question stops being interesting when you start removing the only known solution for strong decentralized consensus— even in the proof of work model an effort to do consensus time probably fails for incentive reasons, but no one knows how to do decenteralized consensus absent the expenditure of work.

Quote
Participating nodes would sample RF noise on some agreed band(s) being
emitted by the Sun and continually record it, with their sampling clock
being driven by their stable local oscillator. Nodes would then publish
timestamped recent fragments of this signal. Peers would then perform a
cross-correlation between the fragments and their own timestamped recordings
in order to find the offset. Only nodes which can concurrently observe the
sun can actively participate in the agreement, but because the local
oscillators are relatively stable this should not prevent good long term
stability. (Effectively your clock would be corrected in the daytime and
free run at night).

Greg, I usually like your ideas... but wow.

-bm
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 257
bluemeanie
May 15, 2014, 08:54:55 PM
#5
It is virtually impossible due to Sybil attacks. Bitcoin is as close to a decentralised timestamp system as you will get.

nope, can be done.  I have a working model.  see:  http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs240/readings/lamport.pdf

if you review that paper maybe we can discuss how to do this, otherwise I'll save it for later.

later friends!  -bm
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
May 15, 2014, 11:32:20 AM
#4
So I was discussing this with a friend was wondering if you guys had any input, how would you go about creating a decentralized system that agrees on the current time?

Preferably not Proof of Work.

Thanks.

Why can't nodes simply use their own server time, adjust to GMT, and reject messages from other
nodes that are not matching (within a margin of error)?
staff
Activity: 4284
Merit: 8808
May 15, 2014, 11:02:27 AM
#3
Using hash-chain mediated common view time transfer, as I wrote in 2011: https://people.xiph.org/~greg/decentralized-time.txt

Quote
Preferably not Proof of Work.
Your question stops being interesting when you start removing the only known solution for strong decentralized consensus— even in the proof of work model an effort to do consensus time probably fails for incentive reasons, but no one knows how to do decenteralized consensus absent the expenditure of work.
jr. member
Activity: 56
Merit: 1
May 15, 2014, 06:18:32 AM
#2
It is virtually impossible due to Sybil attacks. Bitcoin is as close to a decentralised timestamp system as you will get.
hero member
Activity: 527
Merit: 503
May 14, 2014, 10:05:09 PM
#1
So I was discussing this with a friend was wondering if you guys had any input, how would you go about creating a decentralized system that agrees on the current time?

Preferably not Proof of Work.

Thanks.
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