[ANN] FACTOM - Introducing Honesty to Record-Keeping

[.m.]

1/ with BTC - is 0.005 USD per hash (my guess) expensive ? How much is it with FCT ?

See https://shop.factom.com/
You get 1000 Entry Credits for $10 = $0.01 per EC. One EC can hold up to 1kb of data. A SHA256 hash has a size of 32 bytes. So ~30 hashes fit into one entry.
30 hashes on the Bitcoin blockchain would cost 15x as much = $0.15 (when I use your numbers).

However, transaction fees vary on bitcoin and tend to raise over time. You also don't want to bloat the bitcoin blockchain with billions of hashes.

2/ prices may vary, but for both I'd say

Yes, probably for both. Not sure on Factom. However, Factoms masterstroke is, that this doesn't affect the price if you want to store data. The price is fixed at $0.01 per EC. In the moment someone buys EC, a federated server calculates how much factoids are worth $0.01 and burns them. If a Factoid is worth $0.01, 1 Factoid is burned. Is it worth $1 than only 0.01 Factoids get burned. The customer who wants to store data doesn't have to care about this.

3/ custom blockchains probably not with BTC, but there are other solutions, and what is the reason to try with FCT if the data is not guaranteed to be stored ?

I guess I don't understand what you mean.

4/ ?? you "buy" xxx ?? What is the difference ?

From step 2: when someone buys EC (which are needed to store data), then he would need Factoids which get burned for these ECs. However, Factom Inc. handles this for its clients. They just say "give me 1k EC please". Factom says "ok, here it is" while they are automatically creating a wallet, sending factoids to it and convert them into ECs. Since EC are not tradeable but just a token to store data and because it's value is fixed at $0.01, the customer technically doesn't own cryptocurrency and never needs to have a complicated bookkeeping to record the current exchange rate at the moment the data is stored. Not to mention the regulations involved when you buy/own/use a real cryptocurrency.

Thanks for explanation, I believe it is useful for everybody.
I am sorry for my stupid English, please bear with me. With regards to 3/ - the data is not guaranteed to be stored - so what is the reason to try to store hashes or anything with FCT, if it just may disappear ? With BTC I buy the storage in the blockchain forever. Does it make more sense now ?

[tempus]

1/ with BTC - is 0.005 USD per hash (my guess) expensive ? How much is it with FCT ?

See https://shop.factom.com/
You get 1000 Entry Credits for $10 = $0.01 per EC. One EC can hold up to 1kb of data. A SHA256 hash has a size of 32 bytes. So ~30 hashes fit into one entry.
30 hashes on the Bitcoin blockchain would cost 15x as much = $0.15 (when I use your numbers).

However, transaction fees vary on bitcoin and tend to raise over time. You also don't want to bloat the bitcoin blockchain with billions of hashes.

2/ prices may vary, but for both I'd say

Yes, probably for both. Not sure on Factom. However, Factoms masterstroke is, that this doesn't affect the price if you want to store data. The price is fixed at $0.01 per EC. In the moment someone buys EC, a federated server calculates how much factoids are worth $0.01 and burns them. If a Factoid is worth $0.01, 1 Factoid is burned. Is it worth $1 than only 0.01 Factoids get burned. The customer who wants to store data doesn't have to care about this.

3/ custom blockchains probably not with BTC, but there are other solutions, and what is the reason to try with FCT if the data is not guaranteed to be stored ?

I guess I don't understand what you mean.

4/ ?? you "buy" xxx ?? What is the difference ?

From step 2: when someone buys EC (which are needed to store data), then he would need Factoids which get burned for these ECs. However, Factom Inc. handles this for its clients. They just say "give me 1k EC please". Factom says "ok, here it is" while they are automatically creating a wallet, sending factoids to it and convert them into ECs. Since EC are not tradeable but just a token to store data and because it's value is fixed at $0.01, the customer technically doesn't own cryptocurrency and never needs to have a complicated bookkeeping to record the current exchange rate at the moment the data is stored. Not to mention the regulations involved when you buy/own/use a real cryptocurrency.

Thanks for explanation, I believe it is useful for everybody.
I am sorry for my stupid English, please bear with me. With regards to 3/ - the data is not guaranteed to be stored - so what is the reason to try to store hashes or anything with FCT, if it just may disappear ? With BTC I buy the storage in the blockchain forever. Does it make more sense now ?

It's the same in Factom. The hashes, and hashes are data, are stored forever - in Factom and the Bitcoin-Blockchain. But the data that is hashed is not stored by Factom. It has to be that way, because nobody would want to store personal data, like medical records, on a blockchain.

The sense is: Let's say a bank hashes transactions and places the hashes into Factom and Factom into the Bitcoin-Blockchain ---> one year or five years later the bank has proof that nothing was altered or deleted. If there would be a hash in Factom but the file is missing, it would reveal that data was deleted. If there is a file that doesn't match to the hash it was altered etc. Plus: It's also about organizing data and we talk about "big-data" here.

And Factom also can be used to hash access to data. Let's say you work for a bank and you log into your account - Factom can record that as hash (depends on the application, on how the bank uses Factom). And let's say you open a file and change it --> Entry into Factom. So it's not just about the data and hashes but also about responsibility. It makes it much harder to mess with data once it's recorded as hashes. And that is more powerful than most people think because it's not just about objective aspects like:


- Proof of Existence: a document existed in this form at a certain time.
- Proof of Process: a document existed and is linked to this new updated document.
- Proof of Audit: an updated document can be verified to have changed according to a set of rules.

...but also about the way people think and act. That's why it's called "honesty-system". It doesn't prevent dishonest behaviour, it doesn't make it impossible to manipulate or delete data. But Factom would reveal it.

To understand how powerful that is it needs some knowledge about how it's handled today and how much manipulation is going on everywhere on this world with data.

[Macht]

- Proof of Existence: a document existed in this form at a certain time.
- Proof of Process: a document existed and is linked to this new updated document.
- Proof of Audit: an updated document can be verified to have changed according to a set of rules.

...but also about the way people think and act. That's why it's called "honesty-system". It doesn't prevent dishonest behaviour, it doesn't make it impossible to manipulate or delete data. But Factom would reveal it.

To understand how powerful that is it needs some knowledge about how it's handled today and how much manipulation is going on everywhere on this world with data.

Hi! I think I just realised how FCT, EC and fiat will correlate, and its very fascinating!
But what I still don't understand is the data storage thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
These entries are stored on one of the Servers that provide the EC credits, right? They store the actual data, and only store a hash on the blockchain to be able to proof what you mentioned above. If say, a company was to change some of the data or added new data, it would be stored on the EC server, right? So what if, for some reason, all of the data on the EC servers (including Factom) were to be destroyed, would the company be able to "restore" their data (the proofs) regardless?

#edit
I would assume they could, because they could calculate everything from the hashes on the blockchain. But I'm not 100% percent sure. cheers!

thanks!

[haggis]

- Proof of Existence: a document existed in this form at a certain time.
- Proof of Process: a document existed and is linked to this new updated document.
- Proof of Audit: an updated document can be verified to have changed according to a set of rules.

...but also about the way people think and act. That's why it's called "honesty-system". It doesn't prevent dishonest behaviour, it doesn't make it impossible to manipulate or delete data. But Factom would reveal it.

To understand how powerful that is it needs some knowledge about how it's handled today and how much manipulation is going on everywhere on this world with data.

Hi! I think I just realised how FCT, EC and fiat will correlate, and its very fascinating!
But what I still don't understand is the data storage thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
These entries are stored on one of the Servers that provide the EC credits, right? They store the actual data, and only store a hash on the blockchain to be able to proof what you mentioned above. If say, a company was to change some of the data or added new data, it would be stored on the EC server, right? So what if, for some reason, all of the data on the EC servers (including Factom) were to be destroyed, would the company be able to "restore" their data (the proofs) regardless?

#edit
I would assume they could, because they could calculate everything from the hashes on the blockchain. But I'm not 100% percent sure. cheers!

thanks!

Nope, it doesn't work this way. The actual data is stored by the companies as it is currently in their datacenters. With factom they create a merkle tree of this data or hashes of each file (as they like and dependent on use case) and store it in the factom blockchain. If they do it in regular intervals, they have a proofable hashed history of their data. This can be used to either check the integrity of the current data, or to audit the status of data back in history.

I suggest to have a look at the documentation for further details: https://github.com/FactomProject/FactomDocs

[tempus]

- Proof of Existence: a document existed in this form at a certain time.
- Proof of Process: a document existed and is linked to this new updated document.
- Proof of Audit: an updated document can be verified to have changed according to a set of rules.

...but also about the way people think and act. That's why it's called "honesty-system". It doesn't prevent dishonest behaviour, it doesn't make it impossible to manipulate or delete data. But Factom would reveal it.

To understand how powerful that is it needs some knowledge about how it's handled today and how much manipulation is going on everywhere on this world with data.

Hi! I think I just realised how FCT, EC and fiat will correlate, and its very fascinating!
But what I still don't understand is the data storage thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
These entries are stored on one of the Servers that provide the EC credits, right? They store the actual data, and only store a hash on the blockchain to be able to proof what you mentioned above. If say, a company was to change some of the data or added new data, it would be stored on the EC server, right? So what if, for some reason, all of the data on the EC servers (including Factom) were to be destroyed, would the company be able to "restore" their data (the proofs) regardless?

#edit
I would assume they could, because they could calculate everything from the hashes on the blockchain. But I'm not 100% percent sure. cheers!

thanks!

Imagine a security-camera in a Hotel-lobby. It takes 24 photos per second (or something like that) and all photos are stored on the server of the security-company.

The security-company uses Factom to hash the film-material - each single photo. It also hashes log-ins of the accounts of employees. All is hashed into Factom on an own chain for that company, plus: timestamped and anchored into the Bitcoin-Blockchain.

Important is: The actual data is stored on servers of the security-company - not in Factom. They only store hashes of each photo on the

Let's say the film-recordings play a role in a lawsuit. The security-company is able to proof that they have the whole material - no photo is missing, no file was altered and they also can proof that the time-stamp is correct.

If that wouldn't be the case, let's say the film-material was manipulated --> the files wouldn't match anymore to the hashes.

If photos were deleted --> there would be timestamped hashes in Factom while the real data is missing.

And because the security company also hashes log-ins of employee-accounts into Factom it would be possible to find out who was responsible and what he did and when.

And those Entries are stored on several Factom-servers. While the server of the security-company is a single-point of failure, because a corrupted employee could mess with the data or it could be hacked, it's near to impossible to do that with the decentralized federated servers of Factom. And even if: After 10 minutes it's in the Bitcoin-Blockchain.


But: The Factom server don't necessarily provide Entry Credits. They are paid with Factoids from the protocol for their work. Entry Credits are created through a transaction from Factoids to an Entry-Credit-Adress. The security-company could pay somebody (an EC-store, maybe somebody who runs a Factom-Server) with $x  to purchase Entry Credits. The EC-Store-Owner sends Factoids (matching the $ amount - dependent on the current FCT-price) to the EC-Adress of the security-company.

- The security company gets Entry Credits for Dollar
- The converted Factoids are out of the system - burned/destroyed


Or to make it easier: Let's say one of your friends wants to hash a lot of important documents into Factom but he doesn't have an account on Poloniex to buy Factoids. He could give you cash and you could make a transaction from your Factoid-address to his Entry-Credit-Address. Or he could be the Factom-EC-store and they would send him Factoids on his EC-Address. If I would want to do it I would send from my Factoid address to my EC-address.

What I want to say with that, because some don't understand that: In all possible ways of purchasing EC's, FCT's are converted into EC's and burned through that process.

[nowhere man]

Someone is spreading rumours in the polo trollbox that factom is bankrupt. That doesn't really help our cause. Can we have a factom representative point out they've just raised 6 million in funding and are doing fine?

[tempus]

Someone is spreading rumours in the polo trollbox that factom is bankrupt. That doesn't really help our cause. Can we have a factom representative point out they've just raised 6 million in funding and are doing fine?

No worries. Lies in the trollbox are part of the daily game and nearly nobody will believe it.

And most of the talking there is positive: http://www.polonibox.com/?messageText=factom

[Embat]

This guys makes us great favour they will stay out of the game. Let them dump it.

[xmrlove]

Smart move would be to sell before this drops further. Get in on XMR while its under 2MILL SAT. Wont be there for much longer.

[nowhere man]

Smart move would be to sell before this drops further. Get in on XMR while its under 2MILL SAT. Wont be there for much longer.

I'm guessing you longed xmr on the peak. Bad luck.

[Fuyuki_Wataru]

Someone is spreading rumours in the polo trollbox that factom is bankrupt. That doesn't really help our cause. Can we have a factom representative point out they've just raised 6 million in funding and are doing fine?

Haha that's hilarious, the troll-box never ceases to amaze me.

But then again it could explain the major 500+BTC sell offs....

Ahh, I doubt it's real and only a rumor used to spread FUD.

[ardia]

- Proof of Existence: a document existed in this form at a certain time.
- Proof of Process: a document existed and is linked to this new updated document.
- Proof of Audit: an updated document can be verified to have changed according to a set of rules.

...but also about the way people think and act. That's why it's called "honesty-system". It doesn't prevent dishonest behaviour, it doesn't make it impossible to manipulate or delete data. But Factom would reveal it.

To understand how powerful that is it needs some knowledge about how it's handled today and how much manipulation is going on everywhere on this world with data.

Hi! I think I just realised how FCT, EC and fiat will correlate, and its very fascinating!
But what I still don't understand is the data storage thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
These entries are stored on one of the Servers that provide the EC credits, right? They store the actual data, and only store a hash on the blockchain to be able to proof what you mentioned above. If say, a company was to change some of the data or added new data, it would be stored on the EC server, right? So what if, for some reason, all of the data on the EC servers (including Factom) were to be destroyed, would the company be able to "restore" their data (the proofs) regardless?

#edit
I would assume they could, because they could calculate everything from the hashes on the blockchain. But I'm not 100% percent sure. cheers!

thanks!

Imagine a security-camera in a Hotel-lobby. It takes 24 photos per second (or something like that) and all photos are stored on the server of the security-company.

The security-company uses Factom to hash the film-material - each single photo. It also hashes log-ins of the accounts of employees. All is hashed into Factom on an own chain for that company, plus: timestamped and anchored into the Bitcoin-Blockchain.

Important is: The actual data is stored on servers of the security-company - not in Factom. They only store hashes of each photo on the

Let's say the film-recordings play a role in a lawsuit. The security-company is able to proof that they have the whole material - no photo is missing, no file was altered and they also can proof that the time-stamp is correct.

If that wouldn't be the case, let's say the film-material was manipulated --> the files wouldn't match anymore to the hashes.

If photos were deleted --> there would be timestamped hashes in Factom while the real data is missing.

And because the security company also hashes log-ins of employee-accounts into Factom it would be possible to find out who was responsible and what he did and when.

And those Entries are stored on several Factom-servers. While the server of the security-company is a single-point of failure, because a corrupted employee could mess with the data or it could be hacked, it's near to impossible to do that with the decentralized federated servers of Factom. And even if: After 10 minutes it's in the Bitcoin-Blockchain.


But: The Factom server don't necessarily provide Entry Credits. They are paid with Factoids from the protocol for their work. Entry Credits are created through a transaction from Factoids to an Entry-Credit-Adress. The security-company could pay somebody (an EC-store, maybe somebody who runs a Factom-Server) with $x  to purchase Entry Credits. The EC-Store-Owner sends Factoids (matching the $ amount - dependent on the current FCT-price) to the EC-Adress of the security-company.

- The security company gets Entry Credits for Dollar
- The converted Factoids are out of the system - burned/destroyed


Or to make it easier: Let's say one of your friends wants to hash a lot of important documents into Factom but he doesn't have an account on Poloniex to buy Factoids. He could give you cash and you could make a transaction from your Factoid-address to his Entry-Credit-Address. Or he could be the Factom-EC-store and they would send him Factoids on his EC-Address. If I would want to do it I would send from my Factoid address to my EC-address.

What I want to say with that, because some don't understand that: In all possible ways of purchasing EC's, FCT's are converted into EC's and burned through that process.

+1
This reminds me of a book I read called "The Legacy of Chernobyl" by Zhores Medvedev.
With Factom, one of the greatest Peacetime Nuclear Disasters could, conceivably, be prevented.

(From memory, so details will be off) In Chernobyl, they left in hot radioactive material in the reactors at the end of the year cycle. This was against regulations, and dangerous.

This was what started the meltdown. The reason it happened is in the Soviet system, the inspectors and Plant operators basically belonged to the same company - the government. And they both got a big fat bonus if all was well at the end of cycle. So, the inspectors overlooked the problem - so they could get paid as well.

How would factom affect this? If they had to hash the data? Im not sure.
Lets see... either
1)
A) at the time of inspection, they could fudge the data from the start so factom wouldn't affect it.
B) Factomizing data would prevent dishonesty here somehow (chime in guys?)

~OR~

2)
They would have to be honest because all the data leading up to the inspection was hashed so an impartial investigator would know they were lying if they said all was A-OK from whatever metrics they collect throughout the year.

[haggis]

Paul is working hard, even today on sunday: https://github.com/PaulSnow?tab=activity

Looks like the last commits were just minor tweaks and no more fundamentals or critical bug fixing.

[Macht]

Nope, it doesn't work this way.
I suggest to have a look at the documentation for further details: https://github.com/FactomProject/FactomDocs

Imagine a security-camera in a Hotel-lobby.

Thanks for explaining! I get it now, I think. Makes sense. Pretty interesting stuff.

[matt608]

On the plus side the lower the price the more factoids are burned the more the supply is reduced.

[D-Lux]

On the plus side the lower the price the more factoids are burned the more the supply is reduced.

Yep, and looks like usage is continuing to grow:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RUZLxxoAfT3C5jIJ144DLYdztYe_sqrKqbTlZuD05-s/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=445871101

[neo1947]

hi
Factom is perfectly doing what it suppose to do,more EC less factoids in circulation means in a long run we are going to make a decent ROI
we all know beggining of Bitcoin.
 "There is a saying that when a genius points at the moon, a fool looks at the finger.
have a great life guys.

[BrianDeery]

- Proof of Existence: a document existed in this form at a certain time.
- Proof of Process: a document existed and is linked to this new updated document.
- Proof of Audit: an updated document can be verified to have changed according to a set of rules.

...but also about the way people think and act. That's why it's called "honesty-system". It doesn't prevent dishonest behaviour, it doesn't make it impossible to manipulate or delete data. But Factom would reveal it.

To understand how powerful that is it needs some knowledge about how it's handled today and how much manipulation is going on everywhere on this world with data.

Hi! I think I just realised how FCT, EC and fiat will correlate, and its very fascinating!
But what I still don't understand is the data storage thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
These entries are stored on one of the Servers that provide the EC credits, right? They store the actual data, and only store a hash on the blockchain to be able to proof what you mentioned above. If say, a company was to change some of the data or added new data, it would be stored on the EC server, right? So what if, for some reason, all of the data on the EC servers (including Factom) were to be destroyed, would the company be able to "restore" their data (the proofs) regardless?

#edit
I would assume they could, because they could calculate everything from the hashes on the blockchain. But I'm not 100% percent sure. cheers!

thanks!

I like to say that factom is for securing and indexing data.

There are other things that you can do with data.  You can store it and you can serve it up.

Data storage in today's world is mostly a solved problem.  It is sitting on some hard drive or on some backup tape, or in someone's email inbox.  Finding the data that you need is the hard part, which is also part of the serving the data.  Someone needs to pay for a computer to be online and ready to hand you any data that you ask for within a few milliseconds.  This is much harder than having it available if and when needed with a few days of lead time. 

Knowing where to look is hard, and knowing if you found the right thing is even harder in today's world.  This is what we are trying to fix.


Think of a newspaper.  When something is published, the news gets widely distributed.  A year later, the newspaper will be harder to get ahold of.  You can't just go down to the corner store and pay a quarter and get a copy anymore.  This is analogous to the serving of the data getting harder.  If you need to get a copy, there are still organizations that retain that newspaper.  You can go down to the library and get old newspaper copies.  For even older newspapers, they have microfiche, which is a more awkward way to get the data.

Some people collect newspaper clippings.  Those clippings are subsets of the entire news system, but are individual proofs that something happened.  By it being on special paper, that makes it hard to forge, and if someone did forge a newspaper clipping, others could prove the negative by going to the library and showing that the clipping does not show up in the authoritative copy on the specified day.

newspaper clippings are like saving the merkle paths.  They prove the positive, but cannot prove the negative.  Public notices are a way to prove that the public was warned about something.  a clipping can prove the notice happened.  Conversely the entire history of publications is needed to show that a notice did not happen.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_notice



>the data is not guaranteed to be stored - so what is the reason to try to store hashes or anything with FCT, if it just may disappear ?

If you wanted a 10 year old newspaper, and went to the newspaper company, would you be terribly surprised if they did not have one available for you?

Lets go further and say that the newspaper company was bought out by a ne'er-do-well.  The newspaper companies new management is incapable of recalling the old newspapers in all the libraries around the world.  They can print new copies that rewrite history if you buy an updated reprinted historical edition at their new headquarters, but it can be proved that they changed history, because the copies in the libraries still exist.



Apologies if this example seems rushed, because it is.


>would the company be able to "restore" their data (the proofs) regardless?

This is why you would run a full factomd node.  It has all the data captured by factom and can generate all proofs.  If you absolutely need to have the data in the future, just store it yourself.  It self validates against bitcoin, so your counterparties do not need to trust your data integrity procedures.


>The actual data is stored by the companies as it is currently in their datacenters.

If the data is small enough (<10Kib) and needs to be public, it can go directly into an Entry.  Most entries, though will be securing private data I suspect though, so yes, just signed hashes with metadata.


ps. bitcoin does not promise to store things forever either.

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2983/is-pruning-transaction-history-implemented-in-satoshis-bitcoin-client


also, https://medium.com/@BrianDeery/i-love-negative-feedback-632f8ee780ff  for those just joining us.

[Macht]

I like to say that factom is for securing and indexing data.

There are other things that you can do with data.  You can store it and you can serve it up.

Data storage in today's world is mostly a solved problem. 

Well, while I don't agree on the solved problem part, I don't see a problem in the future IF the safenetwork will work as intended
I think that was what I was aiming at (in hindsight), because imho both technologies will complement each other quite well.

Thanks for your insights!

[BrianDeery]

Do you guys have any questions you would like Paul to answer on the crypto show tonight?