Event ledger

• US 10,361,869 B2
• Filed: 08/23/2016
• Issued: 07/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Gorman, Michael A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zarrineh, Shahriar
• Application Number:
  US15/244,731
• Publication Number:
  US 20180062848A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,064 Days
• Field of Search: 713176
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0643 Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/321 involving a third party or a trusted authority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3239 involving non-keyed hash functions, e.g. modification detection codes [MDCs], MD5, SHA or RIPEMD
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/50 using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a globally accessible, un-forgeable, and permanent repository of published events in the form of an event ledger. A method according to the present disclosure includes receiving a request from a publisher to publish to an event ledger an event including a name of the publisher, a date and time at which the event occurred, a description of the event, and a cryptographic signature of the event signed using a private key of the publisher, receiving a certificate from the publisher including a public key of the publisher, validating the cryptographic signature of the event using the received certificate, and publishing the event to the event ledger.

Claims

1. A method implemented by at least one hardware processor comprising:

receiving a request from a first party to publish an event occurrence to an event ledger, the event comprising;

a first event data indicating a name of the publisher who can attest that said event occurred, said publisher identified by that publisher'"'"'s domain name;

a second event data indicating a date and time at which the event occurred;

a third event data indicating a description of the event and an event type; and

a

cryptographic signature of a string resulting from encoding a result of a hash function applied to the first, second and third event data, said first, second and third event data being formatted according to an event ledger requirement prior to applying the hash function, the string of the event signed using a private key of the publisher;

receiving a certificate from an Internet address associated with the publisher domain name, the certificate comprising a public key of the publisher;

verifying the cryptographic signature of the event using the received certificate;

publishing the event to the event ledger, said event ledger comprising;

a database shared by multiple computing nodes participating in a system based on a blockchain protocol, the database storing event data associated with events already occurred and published by publishers in a blockchain data structure and storing the certificate with the event to subsequently verify the identity of the publisher;

subsequently receiving a query from a second party to search for an event in said event ledger; and

in response,

accessing said blockchain data structure of said database to obtain said event data for said searched event;

providing to the second party said obtained event data from said ledger, and

extracting said first, second and third event data from the obtained event data,

removing said cryptographic signature from the event;

reformatting said first, second and third event fields according to the event ledger requirement, and

applying said hash function to the reformatted said first, second and third event data to obtain a further resulting string and encoding said further resulting string, said second party using said public key from said stored publisher certificate to sign the encoded further resulting string, said signed further resulting string used to verify validity of the cryptographic signature and event data authenticity, and

using said verified authentic event as triggering condition to achieve fulfillment of a smart contract for said second party on a smart contract network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the certificate is an X.509 certificate of a domain name of the publisher.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the X.509 certificate is downloaded from the domain name of the publisher.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the request comprises the received certificate.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the certificate is received separately from the request.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein verifying the cryptographic signature of the event using the received certificate comprises:

removing the cryptographic signature from the event;

hashing the remaining portions of the event; and

using the public key to verify the cryptographic signature against the hash.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying, based on the certificate, a third-party certificate authority; and

verifying that the received certificate was issued by the third-party certificate authority.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

recording the name of the third-party certificate authority with the event in the event ledger.

9. A system comprising:

at least one hardware processor configured to;

receive a request from a first party to publish an event occurrence to an event ledger, the event comprising;

a first event data indicating a name of a publisher who can attest that said event occurred, said publisher identified by that publisher'"'"'s domain name;

a second event data indicating a date and time at which the event occurred;

a third event data indicating a description of the event and an event type; and

a cryptographic signature of a string resulting from encoding a result of a hash function applied to the first, second and third event data, said first, second and third event data being formatted according to an event ledger requirement prior to applying the hash function, the string of the event signed using a private key of the publisher;

receive a certificate from an address associated with the publisher domain name, the certificate comprising a public key of the publisher;

verify the cryptographic signature of the event using the received certificate;

publish the event to the event ledger, said event ledger comprising;

a database shared by multiple computing nodes participating in a system based on a blockchain protocol, the database storing event data associated with events already occurred and published by publishers in a blockchain data structure and storing the certificate with the event to subsequently verify the identity of the publisher;

subsequently receive a query from a second party to search for an event in said event ledger; and

in response,

access said blockchain data structure of said database to obtain said event data for said searched event;

provide to the second party said obtained event data from said ledger, and extract said first, second and third event data from the obtained event data, remove said cryptographic signature from the event;

reformat said first, second and third event fields according to the event ledger requirement, and

apply said hash function to the reformatted said first, second and third event data to obtain a further resulting string and encoding said further resulting string, said second party using said public key from said stored publisher certificate to sign the encoded further resulting string, said signed further resulting string used to verify validity of the cryptographic signature and event data authenticity, and

use said verified authentic event as triggering condition to achieve fulfillment of a smart contract for said second party on a smart contract network.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the certificate is an X.509 certificate of a domain name of the publisher.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the X.509 certificate is downloaded from the domain name of the publisher.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the request comprises the received certificate.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the certificate is received separately from the request.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein verifying the cryptographic signature of the event using the received certificate comprises:

removing the cryptographic signature from the event;

hashing the remaining portions of the event; and

using the public key to verify the cryptographic signature against the hash.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one hardware processor is further configured to:

identify, based on the certificate, a third-party certificate authority; and

verify that the received certificate was issued by the third-party certificate authority.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

record the name of the third-party certificate authority with the event in the event ledger.

17. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by at least one hardware processor, configure the at least one hardware processor to:

receive a request from a first party to publish an event occurrence to an event ledger, the event comprising;

a first event data indicating a name of a publisher who can attest that said event occurred, said publisher identified by that publisher'"'"'s domain name;

a second event data indicating a date and time at which the event occurred;

a third event data indicating a description of the event and an event type; and

a cryptographic signature of a string resulting from encoding a result of a hash function applied to the first, second and third event data, said first, second and third event data being formatted according to an event ledger requirement prior to applying the hash function, the string of the event signed using a private key of the publisher;

receive a certificate from an address associated with the publisher domain name, the certificate comprising a public key of the publisher;

verify the cryptographic signature of the event using the received certificate;

publish the event to the event ledger, said event ledger comprising;

a database shared by multiple computing nodes participating in a system based on a blockchain protocol, the database storing event data associated with events already occurred and published by publishers in a blockchain data structure and store the certificate with the event to subsequently verify the identity of the publisher;

subsequently receive a query from a second party to search for an event in said event ledger;

and in response,

access said blockchain data structure of said database to obtain said event data for said searched event;

provide to the second party said obtained event data from said ledger, and extract said first, second and third event data from the obtained event data, remove said cryptographic signature from the event;

reformat said first, second and third event fields according to the event ledger requirement, and

apply said hash function to the reformatted said first, second and third event data to obtain a further resulting string and encoding said further resulting string, said second party using said public key from said stored publisher certificate to sign the encoded further resulting string, said signed further resulting string used to verify validity of the cryptographic signature and event data authenticity, and

use said verified authentic event as triggering condition to achieve fulfillment of a smart contract for said second party on a smart contract network.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein verifying the cryptographic signature of the event using the received certificate comprises:

removing the cryptographic signature from the event;

hashing the remaining portions of the event; and

using the public key to verify the cryptographic signature against the hash.