Re: tracking state changes in a temporal read-write web

On Fri, 21 May 2021 at 16:14, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
wrote:

> On 5/21/21 7:34 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>
> this is the outline of a strategy to track state changes in a temporal
> read-write web
>
> by no means the only strategy, but an aim to generalize some of the recent
> discussions
>
> 1. Data as a declarative state machine
>
> The data can be considered as a declarative state machine, offering state
> transitions
>
> Simple case is one document, but it's useful to have multiple documents
> over a set of quads (linked data) or directory tree (file system)
>
> It seems standard practice to track this data using a hash function. So
> the first step would be to hash the document or tree or knowledge base into
> a chain of hashes.  Git or other VCS systems do this, similarly with single
> documents you could take a sha2, for example, and maintain a chain of
> hashes that way
>
> 2. Bootstrapping a timestamp server to witness hashes
>
> Robust global timestamp servers have existed for over a decade,
> popularized by the bitcoin project, often referred to as block chains,
> because data is tied to those timestamps in the form of 'blocks' of data.
> Users compete for space on those blocks based on an auction basis, as they
> are a finite resource, to make them spam resistant
>
> The chain of hashes described in (1) can be tracked on the blocks of the
> timestamp server, which tend to have a common transaction format.
>
> What is needed is hash1,hash2,hash3...hashn to be sequenced in time from a
> definitive start, or genesis.  That genesis can become an identifier for
> the chain of linked data which we wish to securely witness.
>
> Block chains typically follow a transaction in time from spent ->
> unspent.  The terminology is that of inputs and outputs.  This can be
> thought of as source and destination.
>
> The transactions are identified as cryptographic hashes, with an array of
> outputs.  In order for a timestamp server to track a chain of linked data,
> we need to construct a URI for the linked data hashes (hash1,2...n) and for
> the block chain transactions (tx1,2,...) with the first tx being a genesis
> identifier
>
> Gaps needed to fill:  create URIs for hash1,2,...n.  Create URIs for
> tx1,2...n
>
> 3. Two way links between state machines
>
> Two way links between those state machines ensure strong coupling between
> the two systems providing a bootstrap.  So from the case of the linked
> data, you need a pointer to the transaction URI.  And from the block chain
> you need a pointer to the hash URI.
>
> From a block chain there's a couple of ways to do this, one is the
> so-called OP_RETURN which allows you to embed data in at transaction.  The
> other is known as 'tweaking' a public key on order to add a hash
> (hash1,2...n in the web chain)
>
> Linking from linked data to a transaction, once you have a URI can be done
> in a number of ways.  But as linked data is designed to link to other URIs
> it's quite doable by putting it onto the data structure.  Another
> technique, for example in VCS is to put a link in the commit message, as
> commit messages are part of the chained tree
>
> 4. Ensuring Temporal Integrity
>
> Once (1), (2), (3) are in place.  Change can be made to the state machine,
> and new hashes generated.  With the example of git we can commit hashes to
> a file system, or a centralized server such as github
>
> But, If we want to commit at web scale, we can do so as follows:
>
> Firstly generate a hash of the new state.  Then move the transaction in
> the block chain along to point to this new state.  The transaction itself
> has PKI based ownership rights which have a variety of ways to manage and
> transfer ownership including so-called "multi sig" ownership where any N of
> a given M actors need to agree on a transition
>
> Finally, point the web chain back to this new transaction once it is
> confirmed
>
> This will progress the web chain in time and mirror it on the underlying
> time stamp server
>
> The resulting system creates a temporal read write web state machine
> anchored to the strong assurances of an underlying timestamp server
>
> This is a sketch outline of something that could be turned into a
> prototype or MVP, and also illustrating the gaps in technology that we
> need, namely to create two URI schemes, to hash web state, and describe
> state transitions, for data and for agents
>
> Appreciate this is a sketch outline right now, feedback welcome!
>
>
> Great explanation!
>
> *Challenge:*
>
> Persisting this in a form that available for easy recall.
>
> *Suggestions:*
>
> 1. Documentation using RDF sentences in a document
>
> 2. A visual diagram to complement -- e.g., using http://draw.io
>
> *Example:*
>
> 1.
> http://www.openlinksw.com/data/turtle/general/knowledge-graph-manifestation-turtle-jsonld.html
> -- I constructed that for explaining Hypertext, Hyperdata, Hypermedia etc.,
> in relation to Knowledge Graphs; that all started from a draw.io diagram
> .
>

Good thoughts, I can add some diagrams to explain things better

Couple of inspiration of images I'd like to make:

https://www.commerceblock.com/images/mainstay.png

And Figure 1. from this white paper (which has quite related ideas)

https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipns/ipfs.commerceblock.com/commerceblock-whitepaper-mainstay.pdf

I'm not great with graphics, nor can afford to hire someone, but I've asked
an artist friend to see if they can help

I'll give draw.io a look tho


>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Kingsley Idehen 
> Founder & CEO
> OpenLink Software
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