SECURE BLOCKCHAIN-BASED CONSENSUS

• US 20200137082A1
• Filed: 04/16/2018
• Published: 04/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nchain Licensing AG (Nchain Holdings Limited)
• Original Assignee: Nchain Holdings Limited
• Inventors: JIMENEZ-DELGADO, Pedro
• Granted Patent: US 11,483,338 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1425 Traffic logging, e.g. anomaly detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/145 the attack involving the propagation of malware through the network, e.g. viruses, trojans or worms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0637 Modes of operation, e.g. cipher block chaining [CBC], electronic codebook [ECB] or Galois/counter mode [GCM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0643 Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC
• 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 9/3252 using DSA or related signature schemes, e.g. elliptic based signatures, ElGamal or Schnorr schemes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3255 using group based signatures, e.g. ring or threshold signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/50 using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees

Abstract

There may be provided a computer-implemented method. The computer-implemented method includes: i) broadcasting a transaction, by a node in a blockchain network, to a congress pool to join a congress formed of a group of nodes; ii) after the congress has accepted a request from a requester to activate a script, preparing, by the node, a blockchain transaction cryptographically locked with a public key associated with the congress; iii) cooperatively generating, by the node in cooperating with other nodes of the group, a valid cryptographic signature for the transaction to spend the transaction; iv) after the blockchain transaction has been unlocked, receiving data from the plurality of information providing systems; v) determining a centre point for the data received from the plurality of information providing systems; and vi) activating, by the node in cooperation with other nodes of the congress, the script based on the centre point.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

broadcasting a transaction, by a node in a blockchain network, to a congress pool to join a congress formed of a group of nodes;

after the congress has accepted a request from a requester to activate a script, preparing, by the node, a blockchain transaction cryptographically locked with a public key associated with the congress pool, the blockchain transaction configured to permit a plurality of information providing systems to add inputs to the blockchain transaction;

after the inputs have been added to the blockchain transaction, cooperatively generating, by the node in cooperating with other nodes of the group, a valid cryptographic signature for the blockchain transaction to unlock the blockchain transaction;

after the transaction has been unlocked, receiving data from the plurality of information providing systems;

determining a centre point for the data received from the plurality of information providing systems; and

activating, by the node in cooperation with other nodes of the congress, the script based on the centre point.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

based on the centre point, identifying, by the node, a subset of the information providing systems that provided data proximate the centre point; and

authorizing, by the node in cooperation with other nodes of the group, a transfer of a token to each information providing system in the subset.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the token included in the transfer include one or more tokens received from the requester into the congress pool.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a threshold indicator and wherein the subset is identified based on the threshold indicator.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the threshold indicator is received from the requester.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the inputs include respective proof of solution data, the method further comprising determining that the data received from at least one of the information providing system corresponds with a committed solution based on the proof of solution data.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the inputs include respective proof of solution data, the method further comprising:

determining that the data received from at least one of the information providing systems does not correspond with the proof of solution data received from that information providing system; and

in response to determining that the data received from the at least one of the information providing systems does not correspond with a committed solution based on the proof of solution data, discarding the data.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the inputs include tokens to be locked for security.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the information providing systems include, in the blockchain transaction, a hash based on a public key, a solution to the request and salt.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the data received from the plurality of information providing systems includes the public key, the solution to the request and the salt, the method further comprising:

generating a hash based on the public key, the solution to the request and the salt; and

comparing the generated hash with the hash included in the blockchain transaction.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting malicious activity by a malicious party, wherein the malicious party is one of a plurality of nodes of the congress; and

using a private key share to confiscate at least a portion of tokens previously transferred to the congress pool by the malicious party.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein confiscating comprises transferring to an unspendable account.

13. A computer readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions which, when executed, configure a processor to perform the method of claim 1.

14. An electronic device comprising:

an interface device;

a processor coupled to the interface device; and

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory having stored thereon computer executable instructions which, when executed, configure the processor to perform the method of any one of claim 1.

15. The electronic device of claim 14, wherein the processor includes a trusted execution environment and wherein the computer executable instructions are executed within the trusted execution environment.