Here's the last of these articles I plan to forward. This one mentions the "persistent institutions" idea (based on timed-release crypto mediated by mutually suspicious agents) I have mentioned at times. (I need to do a major piece on this, as my comments are mainly scattered in various places.) Dave Deltorto was asking about hardware failure of the host machines as a practical concern and this is what I was initially responding to. --Tim
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 12:16:30 -0800 To: cypherpunks@toad.com From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Re: Timed-Release Crypto
Dave Deltorto writes (about my idea for timed-release crypto):
Well, yes, Tim, but what about the MTBF rating fo disk drives and or other storage media? Any such message would also be relying on the turst that the disk it's stored on, the mail system and or the organization it was sent to for storgae are still going to be around. Now, if there were dedicated places
Loss of hardware over the years due to unreliability is unlikely to be the main issue, for several reasons:
1. Modern MTBFs for large disk drives are approaching 100,000 hours, or well over 10 years. The drives are likelier to be voluntarily retired first. And newer drives, including archival optical drives, are even more reliable (the drives may crash, but optical media survive). For the drives that _do_ fail, backup strategies exist, as with all storage of critical files. To wit, if your point is correct, then the failures of some disk drives at banks, insurance companies, etc., should be producing some fraction of "unrecoverable losses" each year. That they are not, because of robust backup and redundant storage methods, is evidence that crypto time vaults will also be reasonably secure. (Granted, you wouldn't want to trust your $100,000 deposit for 20 years on Joe Random's aging Amiga 1000.)
2. A relatively large file by today's standards, e.g., 10 megabytes, will be a very small file by the standards of 10 years from now. The upshot is that new and more reliable storage methods (and transmission methods) will make storage of such small files quite trivial. (And remember that since the pieces are encrypted, physical duplication for backups, redundant storage, etc., is not a compromise of security.)
3. The most reputatable crypto time vaults will of course be careful not to lose client files, especially not for such mundane reasons as disk drive failures.
4. M-out-of-n voting strategies are likely in any case, to deal with collusion of some of the nodes. That is, a file will be split into pieces such that any 8 out of 12 pieces, for example, are sufficient to recover the original file. (Encryption is a separate issue, though obviously related.)
5. The files are likely to be moved around a lot, anyway, making hardware failures manageable on an instantaneous basis (that is, bad nodes, etc., can be compensated for when the time comes to reroute the files). Thus, a critical file does not just get "parked" at one site for 30 years.
where such t-r crypto msgs could be stored, such as a digital "bank" (where they would no doubt charge a storage fee, possibly necessitating that each such msg would be able to "peel off" digicredits from itself every year to guarantee paying for it's own upkeep in case you were no longer aropund to sign checks), the question of whether or not it would BE there in 30 years might be moot, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.
"Persistent institutions" is what I call these systems or trusts that last for many decades. If such systems can be built, using some of the ideas discussed here in this group, then interesting new financial and political structures are possible. Imagine an anonymous, distributed trust that has $10 billion in crypto-assets and a "goal" of funding nanotech or cryonics research. (Lots of complicated stuff yet to be considered in enough detail on how such "goals" might be stored, acted on, etc. For the sake of simplicity, think of it as a kind of Howard Hughes Medical Foundation, which once owned the Hughes Corporation, but which is not located in any one single country....)
Still, I find your idea very compelling and full of merit.
Thanks. Lots more work is needed.
-Tim May
-- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available.
.......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."