Evolutionist,
We continue our examination of the Bitcoin White Paper, released by Satoshi Nakamoto in October of 2008, focusing on section three, Timestamp Server.
Last week we covered transactions, and it is those transactions ultimately make up a Bitcoin block. These blocks contain data (input) that is then processed by computer code and power to produce a HASH (digest). The information can be lines and lines of transactions, data, etc., of different sizes, but the output is always the same size. This HASH is then used in the next Bitcoin block to link it to the previous block, thus creating the “blockchain,” or as Satoshi called it, a Timestamp Server.
Here is an example of a Bitcoin HASH from Block 735797: 00000000000000000008a51bf750e48bdaa8f1be4ccc56fd09bdaf4edced4dfd
The HASH is then broadcasted out publicly so anyone can verify the time and details of the transactions in the block. If you would like to see the blocks and hashes for yourself, try out this block explorer: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer?view=btc
The Bitcoin White Paper Series:
To the moon!
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Timestamp Server
The solution we propose begins with a timestamp server. A timestamp server works by taking a hash of a block of items to be timestamped and widely publishing the hash, such as in a newspaper or Usenet post [2-5]. The timestamp proves that the data must have existed at the time, obviously, in order to get into the hash. Each timestamp includes the previous timestamp in its hash, forming a chain, with each additional timestamp reinforcing the ones before it.
[2] H. Massias, X.S. Avila, and J.-J. Quisquater, "Design of a secure timestamping service with minimal trust requirements," In 20th Symposium on Information Theory in the Benelux, May 1999.
[3] S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "How to time-stamp a digital document," In Journal of Cryptology, vol 3, no 2, pages 99-111, 1991.
[4] D. Bayer, S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "Improving the efficiency and reliability of digital time-stamping," In Sequences II: Methods in Communication, Security and Computer Science, pages 329-334, 1993.
[5] S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "Secure names for bit-strings," In Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pages 28-35, April 1997.
Hash: A hash is a function that transforms any data into a fixed size output which is impossible to do in reverse without trying all possible inputs. As an example of a simple hash function, consider the square root: the square root of 17202 is easy to calculate – it’s about 131.15639519291463, so a simple hash function might be the latter digits of this, 9291463. However, given just 9291463, it’s much harder to figure out what number it came from, and you have to go through all the possibilities. Modern cryptographic hashes like SHA-256 are a much more complex and secure version. The word is also used to refer to the output of such a function.
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