It has been a while since our last update and we figured, we should make a noise to show we are still alive and kicking.

We are working on a lot of things simultaneously right now, but most of them do not make for good news.
We will give out an update anyway.

We mentioned last time, that our engineer and the math guy had a little dispute about assembler. For those who do not know what it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language
In principal, it does not get much closer to zeros and ones when it comes to programming. The upside of this is extreme efficiency. Programs wrote in assembler allow for ultimate control of MPU functions. The downside is, put bluntly, that it is a pain in the ass to use assembler. Please excuse this profanity, but there are not that many words to describe how utterly uncomfortable and hard it is to get something complex working with assembler. Even more so, when it requires floating point operations.
Our math guy figured, that an elliptic curve DSA is possible to code with assembler. This is not very surprising, as there is basically nothing you can not do with assembler. There are just many things that you do not want to do with assembler. The bad news about it is, that there does not seem to be any obvious way to get around the use of floating point operations when calculating discrete logarithms.

Now, if we want to have one of our locks in a smartphone, the full size lock described in the whitepaper is not really an option. First, it would cause size problems, which is unfortunate, but not crippling. The bigger problem is an economical one. A lot of the components needed to run the lock are already present within a smartphone. Radio transmitters, batteries, RAM, flash memory. It is all in there. To have a product which will be able to compete in the medium term, the lock needs to be as small as possible. Offering locks with largely redundant components is not really an economical competitive option.
We could generally outsource the lock development to companies who wish to participate, but this would increase the initial investment for those companies and subsequently lower the chances for them to come aboard. To get the whole system going, offering a solution which can be integrated without large entry hurdles is almost mandatory. Also, the amount of money involved in offering a general solution in this regard is very tempting, to say the least.

So we are back at assembler. A competitive chip able to use ECDSA will use code written in assembler. The engineer says he does not want to, he really does not. The math guy says he has to. He also says, that it is going to especially tedious.

But we put too much work in the project by now to go for a suboptimal solution.

News which are slightly embarrassing revolve around the website. Our designer guy is working on that and while there are results in general, he was still not able to solve some minor issues by now. Considering what we are creating here, the failure to create a simple website without problems is not very flattering.
In our defence I have to say, the website and the design skills are just icing on the team cake and involve no core skills. Our designer made some nice concepts for the key devices, but we will keep that to a seperate news report.

Last part is the IPO which is still coming, but modified from the original plan. The original planned amount will be further reduced and the amount of invest-able BTC will be significantly below 100. After some discussion we figured that no amount of money we will be able to raise here can cover the development. Thus, we currently try to figure how much money we need to get to the next step, which is getting a working prototype and attracting venture capital.
We know that this seed investment will be at a considerable premium compared to any later funding round. So, while the risk is of course high, the reward in case of success should reflect that risk.

As soon as there is more news around, we will update this thread again. Hopefully finally with a website next time.

So, we are back with some news.
We mentioned the problem of scalability last time and there has been progress on two fronts.

Front one is our sidechain system, which is now a sidechains system. While originally designed to feature only a single sidechain for non transaction related data. A single one would have worked fine for a limited (think limited in the sense of a seven digit number) amount of connected devices, but would have broken down in case of major adoption.
To mitigate this, we will use the 40 byte of arbitrary data, which can be added to bitcoin transactions, for identifying purposes. Making use of this available data, our protocol will be able to handle a practical unlimited amount of sidechains. Actually, in theory it is not unlimited, but the number exceeds a decillion possible sidechains, which is unlimited for every practical scenario. Most likely this number will shrink during development as we may come up with additional information stored in the 40 bytes. So, the problem on front one is solved.

Front two is the amount of transactions in the main blockchain. This would also lead to problems if major adoption is achieved. The bad news is, this is out of our control. The good news is, Gavin Andresen sees this as a problem as well.

Bitcoin in general cannot achieve major adoption in ist current state. The amount of possible transactions does currently not exceed 80000 per day. A possible solution to this is stated by him here

http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-bitcoin-hard-fork/

In any case, it is an issue which has to be adressed sooner than later. We are confident, that it will be adressed. This means, that front two is being worked on as well, just not by us.

Now it is time to work on the second version of the protocol whitepaper and rewrite some information for the website.

We will be back with some additional news on the IPO and what our math guy and the engineer have to say about assembler in the coming days.

So, it has been a while and it is time for an update on what is going on.

It seems we have missed the forest for the trees.
But let us begin where it started. We made some projections on the technology we are developing and stumbled upon a problem in scalability.
While in general, the concept is sound and works, it will most likely suffice if it is scaled to the extreme. It can definitely handle several million devices, even up to the 100 millions, but that is sadly not enough. The number of electronic devices which are potential candidates for Keystones, go into the billions.

While settling for a market niche sounds like the easy way to go, we decided to move into another direction instead and develop the project into something which is able to handle virtually any amount of devices.

It was originally planned to use what we call a sidechain or overhead blockchain to store and distribute data required to run the locks. The deployed proof associated with the concept allows for quick pruning of the overhead chain and thus keep that chain small, while allowing anyone who wanted to participate as a node to simply hook up to the network. Nevertheless, it does not scale up to serving billions of devices at the same time. Even with a small chain, every node on the globe needs the full chain to participate, which is very wasteful. The solution to this problem are several overhead chains, which the system is luckily able to deploy. This on the other hand, opens up a multitude of new possibilities, but also a set of new problems. Several sidechains means, that the amount of additional data which can be processed, is only limited by the amount of computing power willing to participate in the network. Which is good. On the bad side this creates a new problem with fee distribution. Having one mainchain and one sidechain made the fee distribution easy. Having several completly busts the original solution to this problem.

So, while the problem of scalability on the data side has been solved, there also came up the question of who is going to pay for the service.
While this could be handled on a personal level, we highly doubt that the "average joe", that is often mentioned around here, is going to appreciate having to take care of his devices security on a regular basis. Also, the payment has to be distributed to several sidechains at once, which is a problem in itself.

To solve this, there needs to be something the devices can provide in return. And luckily, there is something. Which brings us back to the beginning, missing the forest for the trees.
The lock devices will generally be built into something, which processes information in some sort of way. Mobile phones have sensors and collect data from their surroundings. And information is something valuable.
As the technology we are developing is based on the idea of transmitting information, there is nothing that prevents those information flows to go in both directions.

So, the answer to the question „Who is going to pay“ is a little different than initially expected, as the locked devices have something to offer as well. How this is going to be utilized is a point of discussion right now.

There is already a name for that. It is called „The Internet Of Things“

This change in the general direction of the project has some implications, which we will discuss the next time. But for now, the IPO will be postponed until further notice.
Also, the website is there, but the information that we intially wanted to provide there is now slightly outdated. So, more work to do. Sadly, documentation is far less entertaining than building shiny new stuff.

Oh, and as stated last time, here is our current candidate for the proof of concept lock
http://www.atmel.com/devices/ATUC256L4U.aspx

We are making good progress with the website and it should be ready by sunday. Most likely there will be some additional polish needed, but the important part, offering information in a nicer form than currently, will be offered.

The second whitepaper is making progress as well, but sadly not as fast as we like. The first version will be released on Sunday. It will be pretty messy though, as the whole concept is not exactly easy to grasp and put down in an easy and comprehensive form. So, be ready for some knots in your brain. We rather work on a second version after releasing the first instead of postponing the release.

By now we also decided how to approach the testnet. We will clone a not further specified "Proof Of Stake" coin and let it run on a couple of Odroids to simulate a nice and cozy little environment for initial testing. You might also want to take a look at those if you are heavy into NXT or some other purely POS coin.
http://hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php
They can save you a lot of electricity and are perfectly fine for running a node if you are not into "Proof Of Work"

We also have our first candidate for the lock prototype, but more of that the next time.

Stay tuned!

We will have an IPO starting in a couple of weeks. There is still some work to be done prior to that though.
The website will present all this information in a more manageable way.

You're welcome.
Providing some information on what we're doing seems like a good idea.

On a completly unrelated note:
Can someone provide some hints where all the scam screamers have gone? There hasn't been a single post in giant red letters accusing us of being out to grab as much money as we can and make a run for it. Is a self moderated thread that this daunting? I had hoped to be able to delete at least one of those

We're currently setting up a website to present all this information in a more coherent way. If everything happens as planned, it will be ready by the end of the week.

Meanwhile our design guy is having some fun sketching the key. A little bit too much as it seems, as the first design was... let's say impractical. Very cool, but nothing you want for mass production. We're talking about adding a special edition casing for the keys for initial investors. Something printable which we can do on a small scale.

Besides all the info and designing, we're looking into setting up a tiny copy of the bitcoin network. It might be better than starting to test life on the big blockchain. Pro: Nice controlled environment / Con: Nice controlled environment. There will be news about this when we come to a conclusion.

And lastly, the currency whitepaper is making great progress. We hope being able to release it on our own homepage.

Was ist dies?

Keystone ist ein mehrschichtiges Projekt mit dem Ziel  eine Cryptowährung mit physischem, anfassbarem Besitz zu verbinden. Auf diesem Wege wird eine Werteinheit mit intrinsischem Wert erschaffen, welche gleichzeitig eine praktische Sicherheitslösung für elektronischen Geräte darstellt. Das Projekt verlässt derzeit die Konzeptphase und betritt die Prototypenphase, da alle zentralen technischen Fragen geklärt wurden.

Technologie

Keystone wird auf Basis des Mobilfunknetzes arbeiten, also bestehende Infrastrukturen auf eine völlig neue Art nutzen.
Eingebettet in die Bitcoin-Blockkette findet sich der Besitzstatus eines Schlosses in Form eines sogenannten UIDS, eine einzigartige Datenstruktur, die sich ebenfalls in einem ROM-Chip auf dem Keystone-Schloss befindet. Diese UIDS sind mit einer Transaktion, also einem öffentlichen Schlüssel in der Blockchain assoziert und können daher frei gehandelt werden. Die Blockkette stellt sicher, dass die UIDS einzigartig sind die Assoziation mit einem öffentlichen Schlüssel besteht.
Der öffentliche Schlüssel könnte mit einem klassischen Schlüssel mit Schloss verglichen werden. Das Schloss kommuniziert regelmäßig mit dem Netzwerk um den öffentlichen Schlüssel zu erfragen mit dem seine UIDS verbunden ist, und verändert sein Schlüsselloch wenn ein Handel mit dem Schloss stattgefunden hat. Um sicherzustellen ob die Informationen die dem Schloss zugespielt werden auch korrekt sind, kommuniziert das Schloss mehrfach mit zufällig ausgewählten Knotenpunkten des Netzwerks bis die erhaltenen Antworten als korrekter Konsens betrachtet werden können. Die einzige Möglichkeit dieses System zu betrügen ist ein koordinierter Angriff bei dem über die Hälfte des Netzwerkes beteiligt ist. Und selbst dann könnte ein Angreifer höchstens zeitweise das Updaten des Besitzsstatus verhindern, und niemals einen Besitzstatus willentlich verändern.
Das Schloss verwendet zwei Kommunikationskanäle um mit anderen Entitäten zu Daten auszutauschen. Das Keystone-Netzwerk wird über das Mobilfunknetz kontanktiert, der Schlüssel über Kurzstrecken-Bluetooth.
Der Service der benötigt wird um Keystone funktional zu machen ist ein Protokoll das über Bitcoin läuft. Es verwendet Multisig-Transaktionen um die notwendigen Informationen zu speichern. Die Keystone-Clients interpretieren diese Transaktionen anders als der normale Bitcoin-Client und bietet somit die Funktionalitäten die zum Verwenden der physischen Schlösser notwendig sind. Eine zweite Blockkette wird verwendet um einen systemweiten Konsenz zu finden.
Wir haben uns für ein top level Protokoll entschieden da es auf lange Sicht die größte Funktionalität aufweist, da Keystone und Bitcoin gegenseitig voneinander profitieren. Keystone profitiert von der Sicherheit der Bitcoin Blockchain und einfachen Zugang zu bestehender Infrastruktur, wohingegen Bitcoin eine zusätzliche Funktion erhält ohne etwas an seinem Code ändern zu müssen.
Zusätzliche Informationen werden im Whitepaper zu finden sein.

Zusätzliche Informationen werden im Protokoll-Whitepaper zur Verfügung gestellt



Anwendungsmöglichkeiten

Besonders Smartphones bieten sich zur Anwendung dieser Technik an. Der Diebstahl von Smartphones ist ein weltweites Problem das eine Lösung verlangt. Keystone wird den Diebstahl von Smartphones sinnlos machen, da die Smartphones mit dieser Technik einfach aufhören zu arbeiten wenn man sie von ihren Besitzern entfernt. Dasselbe gilt für alle anderen Objekte die durch Keystone gesichert sind.
Keystone wird eine große Anzahl von Besitztümern praktisch diebstahlsicher Machen indem es die Kosten und Mühen eines Diebstahls derartig erhöht, das dieser in keiner Weise mehr lukrativ ist, wohingegen der Preis eines solchen Schlosses im einstelligen Bereich liegt.
Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, Spielekonsolen und jegliches andere Elektrogerät von hohem Wert stellt eine natürliche Anwendungsmöglichkeit für diese Technologie dar. Praktisch jedes Gerat das Strom verwendet kann mit Keystone gesichert werden.
Zusätzlich kann auch eine vielzahl anderer Objekte gesichert werden, indem ein Keystone mit einem physischen Schloss verbunden wird. Somit können selbst Türen, Fahrräder und alle anderen herkömmlichen Schlösser mit Keystone sicherer gemacht werden.
Des Weiteren wird Keystone Carsharing revolutionieren, indem es die Möglichkeit bietet ein Auto für einen festgelegten Zeitraum zu verleihen.

Vorteile gegenüber reinen Softwarelösungen

Der größte Vorteil von Keystone gegenüber herkömmlichen Softwarelösungen als Diebstahlsicherung ist die wesentlich höhere Sicherheit. Um eine Softwaresicherung zu umgehen muss lediglich das Smartphone in seinen Werkszustand zurück gesetzt werden oder Malware installiert werden. Das ist alles relativ einfach wenn das Smartphone erstmal physisch entwendet wurde. Keystone stellt selbst bei einer physischen Entwendung eine enorme Hürde das gestohlene Smartphone nutzbar zu machen dar.
Selbst wenn ein Software-Killswitch installiert ist, so basiert dieser immer noch auf einer zentralisierten Infrastruktur die ein hohes Maß an Vertrauen voraus setzt und anfällig für böswillige Angriffe ist.
Keystone hingegen ist fest in die Hardware eingebaut, sodass ein Umgehen der Diebstahlsicherung unweigerlich das Zerstören des Diebesgutes voraussetzt.
Des Weiteren ist der Handel auf Basis des Keystone-Systems wesentlich sicherer gegen Betrugsversuche als der Handel auf Basis einer Software, falls dieser überhaupt möglich ist.


Netzwerkökonomie

Die Netzwerökonomie basiert auf Gebühren und was als „Beweis Durch Service“ (Proof of Service) bezeichnet wird. Jede Trasaktion innerhalb des Netzwerkes nutzt einen Teil der Primärwährung welche an den aktuell führenden Knotenpunkt, was die Netzwerkdienste angeht, gesendet wird. Die zweite Anwendung der Primärwahrung ist das erstellen neuer UIDS, welche vom Netzwerk akzeptiert werden. Diese werden ebefalls an den aktuellen führenden Knotenpunkt überwiesen. Die letzte Anwendung ist die Teilnahme als Knotenpunkt. Abgesehen von ihrem Nutzen für die Netzwerkfunktionalität wird die Währung frei handel- und teilbar sein. Ganz wie Bitcoin.
Die benötigten Gebühren des Netzwerkes werden durch seine Nutzung bestimmt. Dies wird allerdings erst einen signifikanten Zeitraum nach der Erstveröffentlichung geschehen. Das System wird alle benötigten Ansatzpunkte enthalten. Die Währung wird jedoch mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit über einen langen Zeitraum

The required fees of the network will depend on its usage. This will not commence for a significant time after the protocol launch though. The system will have all required hooks, but as long as the currency is thinly traded and used, which it will most likely be for a long period, this feature will not be activated.

Der "Proof Of Service" wird, genauso wie ein zusätzliches "Erstannehmer"-Feature im Protokoll-Whitepaper genauer beschrieben



Seed investment [IPO]

Die Währung wird auf Basis eines Counterparty KEYSEED Tokens verteilt. Es werden 10000 aufteilbare KEYSEED Tokens existieren. Diese werden nach folgendem Muster verteilt:


-Der fee booster wird verwendet um zusätzliche Gebühren während der frühen Phase des Netzwerkes zu stellen
-Die Entwicklungsreserve wird verwendet um den ersten Satz Schlösser zu registrieren. Letzlich werden die Münzen als Gebühren ins Netzwerk injeziert

Die Email Vergabe wurde noch nicht eingeleitet. Anweisungen werden rechtzeitig gepostet

Translations
Chinese - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789841


Current short term roadmap



-   Release of top protocol whitepaper V 1            
Week 40 (09.29 – 10.05)

-   Opening of Keystone-Wiki                          
Week 40 (09.29 – 10.05)

-   Seed investment round            
Week 40 (09.29 – 10.05)


Achieved Progress

- 09.17 Release of lock and key whitepaper V 1            

- 09.18 First Bounty offerings / update on distribution / small update on economic model                              





Orginalankündigung: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=699113.0

No thread activity does not mean there is no work done.
There is not all that much to talk about right now. Hopefully due to the exhaustive nature of the information provided already. Once the second whitepaper is released, that should change though.

This is a good question and will be answered. Not at this point though, but before start of the seed investment, we're still discussing.

It should also be noted, that the plan has not been laid out completly yet.
At this point there is more important question than our identity though. We have shown, that the technology we describe is in principal possible, at least on the physical side. What is missing and the real innovation, is the crypto infrastructure. Without it, lock and key would need a centralized infrastructure, which would make them ultimately impractical, as the support cost of such infrastructure would drive the cost for the system to levels which are not sustainable for smaller devices.

As was stated earlier, lock and key solutions can in principal be build by any company. The more important aspect is the protocol on top of bitcoin, which will offer a public available infrastructure to support the lock devices. The whitepaper on the protocol will be published in about two weeks time from now.

To satisfy part of your question though, I can reveal experience we call our own.
We have access to

6+ years of mechatronical/microsystem engineering (cross section engineering discipline, most prominently utilized in the car industry)
8+ years of math/physics (not very practical on its own, but does wonders when connecting the dots, filling the gaps and when an engineer asks "can I actually do that?")
12+ years of coding in C++/Java (Pretty obvious what that is good for)

How long our design guy has been around I am not sure of, but you can tell from the picture in the thread start, that it is quiet a while. On the other hand, it is not that important.

edit:
It should be noted that the experience information provided above, is more than most other projects offer. Projects like syscoin and swarm have pretty smiling faces, but don't provide any relevant information on the qualification of the team members.
We might go that way though, as it creates a lot more trust and thus investment. It depends on the final assesment of the required seed ressources. We hope to convince investors through offered concepts and their implications though. That approach is more sincere than pretty pictures.

Thank you! We also think that it is very nice.
We don't have an IRC channel by now, but I will look into the matter.



Good questions, so lets begin answering them.


The technology and engineering involved in that is more flexible and miniturized than it might appear at first glance. First, there is no need to use seperate antennas for bluetooth and cellular communication. Both work on the basis of radio frequency and in bands far apart. It should even be possible to use both at the same time using the same antenna, even though that should not be necessary. Also, seperate chips for both bluetooth and cellular communication are convenient, but ultimately not necessary. The development gets more complicated this way, but the final goal is a chip which is specifically tailored for the task.
When it comes to size, you are right about the MP3 player. Most likely such a device is too small by itself to house one of our locks. On the other hand... MP3 players are not really a large market anymore, they are usually integrated in smartphones. Those on the other hand have the trend of getting slightly larger as time passes. As the lock will soonest be ready with the next generation of smartphones, size should not be a serious problem anymore.
If all of this does not convince you, take a look at this

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/mobile-phones/bar/GT-E1200ZKABTU

This classic mobile contains everything needed for the lock. Take away display, housing, battery and keys and there is not much left. Also, the technology used there is slightly dated already. It was released in 2011. So in conclusion, we don't see any problems with the size of the lock in any case but MP3 players and smartwatches.


A sim card is not necessary to transmit data over the cellular network. It is only used for phone calls and text messages. Technically it is not even required there. The data requirements for the lock will need to be taken care of by the company selling the locks. Hopefully us of course. As data transmission costs about about 5 Dollar-cents per gigabyte, we also don't see a big problem if this handled on a company to company basis.
Nevertheless, we will look further into the matter to see if there is any convenient way to make the whole thing fire and forget for every party involved. The underlying cryptocurrency might offer solutions in that regard.


After a grace period configurable by the user.
You will surely have more questions in that regard though. As a preemptive try to answer them:
Transactions will always be multi signature. A single private key of the multi signature transaction will be enough to unlock a device. More than one will be needed to create a new transaction. Loss of the key thus does not mean loss of ownership of all devices.
You will need to buy a new key though when you lose yours.


Grace periods for all devices may be set. If you want to use a single key and maybe don't even have it with you all the time, set your devices to 24h plus grace periods. You want more security and immediate reactions in case of theft. 3 minute grace period is enough. Get it stolen and it stops working almost immediatly. Correct set grace periods will allow for usage of a single key. Multiple keys might be more convenient though.


Correct. A final design is not ready of course, but we target a battery lifetime of approximately 48 hours. Prefferably more. Of course, this will also depend on some of the user settings. The more frequent the security feature is used and with more range, the shorter the time until next recharge will be.



Yet again, the grace period will take care of that. If a check is failed, the device will not necessarily shut down immediatly. If grace periods are set to a long time, carrying of the key will not be necessary. If you lock your door with our key you might want to take it with you though

I hope this answers your questions to your satisfaction.

Development processes are subject to reiteration, as usually new questions arise through every stage of the project, especially if it contains new technologies.
We have a plan and feel the set dates are realistic, but we also know from experience where roadblocks tend to materialize unexpected. As we don't want to work on the basis of "worst case possible" (which may still be delayed anyway), a combination of timeframes and possible delays seems the most sincere approach.

If you look at other large projects, you will usually find delays without announcement.

The first set of bounties will be offered at some point this week.
PR Management surely sounds nice, but it unfortunately not part of the current bounty plan. We might reconsider this in the future though, thank you for your offer.

We're gonna build a specialzed smart property and security protocol on top of bitcoin, it's gonna be AWESOME!

Question answered?

But really. It is not possible to reduce it much more without removing important information.

And please refrain from giant quotes in the future. Further posts like this, cluttering the thread, will be removed.

Actually, one had already been finished, but during the late concept phase we discovered a problem in the first design, which would have led to an immense additional and unnecessary load on the bitcoin blockchain. On the long run it would likely have been unsustainable. We have solved that problem, but the amount of necessary work changed.
Due to that, we're rather hesitant to release any etas.

There will a very rough and none binding roadmap in a couple of days though.

It's an absolutely valid question.

The main goal is to create an underlying infrastructure for electronics security, which will allow for the above described. In principal a company can always create their own hardware side solution utilizing the protocol.

We aim to make this question of adding one of our locks, a no brainer though. As the lock is ultimately a very specialized microcontroller, production in large quantities will be extremely cheap.
And the ability to advertise with theft proof products for a minimal amount of money, is very tempting.

Also, this solution will ultimately have no significant overhead cost, as the infrastructure needed is decentralized and pays for itself.

Bounties:

Adventerous people may apply for bounties. Be warned though, bounty distribution will start at the same time as the seed investment round.
All bounty related work offered before seed investment round will receive a 25% Bonus


Creation of a simple website
- Needs to contain basic information and Mailing list
- Use of Wordpress required
- Contact and feedback with and of our designer is part of the bounty
Stake worth 1.5 BTC at best rate or 0.5 BTC paid directly


Single Translations
-   Chinese
-   German
-   Spanish  pending
-   French

We accept other languages

Stake worth 0.2 BTC each at best rate

We are currently not looking for further translations. These bounties will open up again later.


Community management / contact person
-   Chinese
-   German
-   Spanish
-   French
Fluent English required in every case. Jobs consist of ongoing update translations and relaying of important questions to the team. Payment will be transmitted at the end of every month.
Stake worth 0.3 BTC each month at best available rate

Applications through PM or to Keystoneassets@outlook.com

What is it?

Keystones is a multilayer project aiming to connect a cryptocurrency with hard physical property, creating a unit of wealth with true inner value while providing a convenient security system for electronic devices. The project is currently leaving the concept stage and entering the prototype stage of development. Every major technical question has been answered.


Technology

Keystone will use cellular network technology as basis of its operation, utilizing existing infrastructure in a genuine new way.
Encoded in the Bitcoin blockchain is the ownership of a lock through a so called UIDS, a unique data structures stored in a ROM inside the keystone-lock and its digital representation in the blockchain itself. These UIDS are associated with a transaction and thus a public key in the blockchain and can be traded freely. The blockchain ensures a UIDS is unique and the association definitely with a public key.
The analogy of the public key in a classical lock is the keyhole. The lock communicates with the network on a regular basis to request the public key its UIDS is pointed to, changing its keyhole when a trade involving the lock has occurred. To ensure the information transferred to the lock is up to date, the request process will be repeated selecting random nodes of the network until the received answer can be overwhelmingly seen as correct. The only way to cheat the involved process is if over half the network is involved in a coordinated attack. And even then all an attacker can do, is to temporarily stall ownership update, but never fake ownership them.
The lock uses two channels to communicate with other entities. The Network will be contacted over cellular network, the key over short range Bluetooth.
The blockchain services required to run keystones come in the form of a protocol on top of bitcoin, using multisig transactions to store required information. The keystone clients interpret these transactions different than the standard bitcoin client and thus offer the functionality needed to support the physical locks. A secondary Ledger will be used to find consensus of system wide overhead.
We decided a top level protocol will have the best long term viability, as bitcoin as well as keystones will mutually benefit from each other. Keystone receives the security of the bitcoin blockchain as well as easy access to existing infrastructure. Bitcoin on the other hand will profit from additional functionality without the risk to break something in the base protocol.

Additional information will be provided in the whitepaper.



Use Cases

Especially smartphones are a natural use case for this technology. Smartphone thefts are a worldwide epidemic and a gigantic market, screaming for a disruption of another kind. Keystone will ultimately make smartphone thefts futile. Take a phone away from an owner and it will simply stop working. The same goes for any other object secured by Keystones. Take it away and it stops functioning.
This technology allows to make a wide variety of possessions virtually theft proof in the sense of increasing the cost and effort to steal an object prohibitively high. At the same time the cost of finished lock will be in the one digit realm.
Besides smartphones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles and any other electronic device of significant value are natural users of this smart property solution. Virtually anything that requires electrical power can be secured by the lock.
In addition, even non electric possessions can be secured by a modified version of the lock, by controlling an actual physical lock with the Keystone-lock. Thus even purely mechanical objects like doors, locks, and bikes are able to be secured by the Keystone-lock.
Lastly, a very specific use of keystones are cars. The technology will be utterly disruptive to the car sharing industry.


Advantages compared to software solutions

Well, this one is pretty easy. To crack software security, you need malware or simply reset the phone to its shipping state. Malware can be installed the moment you take away a phone from its owner, nullifying any security build into the software. So, software security is pretty unsafe and the effort to nullify it, is not especially high.
Even in case a very restrictive software killswitch is installed, the necessary infrastructure is centralized, requires large amounts of trust, is inefficient and prone to a malicious attack.
Keystone powered security on the other hand is virtually theft proof. As a hardware based security system, the only way to crack it, is to break or remove it. The targeted level of integration will make sure that breaking or removing the lock will break the device it is attached to at the same time.
Also, irreversible trading of ownership is nothing a pure software solution can accomplish.


Network economics

The network economy will be based on fees and what we call “Proof Of Service”. Every transaction within the network will use up an amount of the primary currency, which will be sent to the current leader in serving locks. The second use of the primary currency is creating new UIDS, which will be accepted by the network. These will also go to the current serving leader. The third use of the currency is participation as a serving node in the first place. Besides being used for network functionality, the currency will be tradable and divisible like bitcoins.

The required fees of the network will depend on its usage. This will not commence for a significant time after the protocol launch though. The system will have all required hooks, but as long as the currency is thinly traded and used, which it will most likely be for a long period, this feature will not be activated.

The “Proof Of Service” will be discussed further in the protocol whitepaper, as will an additional “Initial Adopter” feature



Seed investment [IPO]

The currency will be distributed based on ownership of counterparty KEYSEED tokens. There will be a total of 10000 divisible KEYSEED Tokens. We will use following distribution percentages:


-The fee booster will be used to inject additional fees during early network stages
-Development reserve will be used for the first set of locks which will be created, serving as a second kickstart for the project

The Email giveaway has not commenced, instructions will follow in time

Translations
Chinese - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789841
German - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=792803.0

Current short term roadmap



-   Release of top protocol whitepaper V 1            
Week 40 (09.29 – 10.05)

-   Opening of Keystone-Wiki                          
Week 40 (09.29 – 10.05)




Achieved Progress

- 09.17 Release of lock and key whitepaper V 1            

- 09.18 First Bounty offerings / update on distribution / small update on economic model