Thought i'd share something we're pretty proud of! [TECHNICAL]
We have become the first project in the world to successfully deploy a NIST beacon commercially (
https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/nist-randomness-beacon)
A quick breakdown...
The beacon uses quantum effects to generate a sequence of truly random values, guaranteed to be unpredictable, even if an attacker has access to the random source.
- Making it impossible for keys to be algorithmically predicted.
- The distribution of random bits cannot be altered by 3rd parties.
- All users can be confident they receive the same random string.
- NIST generates an autonomous, unpredictable, consistent, 512-bit, full-entropy random number every 60 seconds.
How the NIST beacon works The beacon generates the digital bits using photons, or particles of light, rather than the current CPU and Intel chip processes. An experiment previously conducted at NIST in 2015, proved that the quantum entanglement effect referred to by Einstein as 'Spooky Action at a Distance' is real.
This beacon processes the spooky output to certify and quantify the randomness available in the data and generate a string of much more random bits thus allowing a value that is truly random to a degree that has never before been able to achieve in computing.
In contrast, random numbers generated using current technics are not certifiably random in an absolute sense. This is because they are generated by software formulae or physical devices whose supposedly random output can be undermined by factors such as predictable sources of noise.
Temporal uses timestamped randomness, making it impossible to pre-compute the timestamp value.
The degree of randomness from the NIST beacon dramatically increases the cost to attack the network by orders of magnitude greater than current cryptocurrencies.
While it is common for a standard UNIX timestamp which is defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970 in the header of a block in the blockchain, we have chosen not to use this, since this value is very easily pre-computed. The ability to pre-compute the timestamp could allow an attacker to create a malicious block with invalid transactions in it offline and then upload it to the network when the time was appropriate for an attack.
In our model, it is impossible to pre-compute the timestamp value, because it’s a truly random NIST beacon value and a new one is generated every 60 seconds. Also, for a block to carry the NIST timestamp means that the block must have been generated following the release of the beacon. We can thus be certain that an “offline chain attack” as can be conducted on all other cryptocurrencies, has not taken place.
For anyone that wants to deep dive our research papers can be found here -
https://temtum.com/research
