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December 20, 2016, 04:46:36 AM |
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Of course, that's not difficult to do. Only, like "private block chains", there's not much "block chain" about that, because the two things that set a block chain apart from other public, shared files are that on a block chain, there's an incentive for people to want to ERASE data, and there's a needed ORDER IN TIME. Fixing the order in time, and making things indelible are the two aspects of a block chain that were innovating, and that need "difficulty" (so that it becomes infeasible to "redo" the chain). This was needed for a crypto currency, where one needs to prove two things:
- valid creation of coins (scarce coins)
- valid transactions of coins with no double spending (only the FIRST transaction in time counts).
But with random promises, there's no such thing. There is no order in time. The promise is there, or not. A promise is not transferable. It is only redeemable.
What you need here, are just signatures and torrent or something that can share files. People need to have their secret key, and their public key, like with GPG. When you promise something to someone, you write this up in a text, with date, description of what you promise, and to whom (with his public key identifier), and you SIGN it with your secret key.
That file is now public (on a bittorrent server if you want). Every body can:
- see exactly what you promised
- see that you promised it
- see when you promised it.
- see to whom you made that promise.
Nobody can fake a promise in your name, because they cannot sign it.
The person to whom you promise something can make a copy of that file (if you didn't send it directly already). So even if YOU want to delete that file, that person can still put that file up again on a server. You cannot deny any more that you made that promise, because everyone can put that file out. There's no needed "order in time" of the file, because the date is written in the text and signed.
When the person wants to redeem your promise, you make him write a file where he/she writes that your promise has been redeemed, and signs it with his/her private key that corresponds to the public key in your message indicating him/her. If YOU have that file now, you can put it on a server, and show to the world that said promise was redeemed.
Example:
"Today, 20. Dec 2016, I (dinofelis) promise to Joe (< public key of Joe here >) that I owe him a meal at KFC".
(signed with my private key).
This file is put on a server and sent to Joe.
Everybody sees my promise. The day I want to erase it, Joe has a copy (just as well as about any body else) and can put it back.
When finally, Joe redeems his meal, I make him write a message:
< my former message, including signature >
"I, Joe, declare that today, 25. Dec 2016, redeemed my meal from dinofelis"
( signed with Joe's private key ).
and put that on a server.
Everybody sees now that Joe redeemed his meal. If ever Joe wants to claim again that I owe him a meal, I can show this message. If Joe wants to delete it from a server, I can put it back.
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