BLOCKCHAINS AND PUBLIC RECORDKEEPING

Transcription

1 BLOCKCHAINS AND PUBLIC RECORDKEEPING Use the chat box at the right of the screen to tell us who you are, where you re from, and who is participating with you today. (To open the chat window, click on the CHAT icon in the upper right corner.) Connect to the audio portion of the webinar through your phone line or through VoIP.

2 WELCOME! Spring 2019 State Electronic Records Initiative webinars May: IQ and You: South Carolina s approach to Governor s Records in a Proprietary File Format June: Bit by Bit: Alabama State Electronic Records Project Update Bonnie Weddle New York State Archives Fall 2019 SERI webinars start in September

3 SERI ONLINE RECORDINGS Managing Digital Content Over Time Identify Select Store Protect Manage Provide access

4 TODAY S PRESENTER Nick Connizzo Digital Archivist / Digital RIM Specialist Vermont State Archives and Records Administration nicholas.connizzo@vermont.gov

5 PUBLIC RECORDS AND BLOCKCHAINS What (I hope) this webinar is: Informative High-Level Thought-provoking What this webinar is not: Overly technical Perfect The solution to all your problems!

6 PUBLIC RECORDS AND BLOCKCHAINS Objectives: What are public records? What requirements do (or should) we have for public records? A framework for evaluating public recordkeeping technologies Blockchains: What are they, why are they, and how do they work? Using our framework to evaluate blockchains at a high level Where do we go from here? Preservation, presentation, and the future

7 A LITTLE BACKGROUND Vermont Legislative Act 51 of 2015: On or before January 15, 2016, the Secretary of State, the Commissioner of Financial Regulation, and the Attorney General shall consult with one or more Vermont delegates to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and with the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School, and together shall submit a report to the General Assembly their finding[s] and recommendations on the potential opportunities and risks of creating a presumption of validity for electronic facts and records that employ blockchain technology and addressing any unresolved regulatory issues. This led to: Blockchain Technology: Opportunities and Risks, by the Secretary of State, Attorney General and Commissioner of Financial Regulation, January 15, 2016

8 A LITTLE BACKGROUND (PART 2) Vermont Legislative Act 205 of 2018: On or before January 15, 2019, the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration, in collaboration with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, the Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association, and the Agency of Digital Services, shall: (1) evaluate blockchain technology for the systematic and efficient management of public records in accordance with 1 V.S.A. 317a and 3 V.S.A. 117; (2) recommend legislation, including uniform laws, necessary to support the possible use of blockchain technology for the recording of land records pursuant to 24 V.S.A and for other public records; and (3) submit its findings and recommendations to the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development; the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs; and the House and Senate Committees on Government Operations. This led to: Blockchains for Public Recordkeeping and for Recording Land Records, by the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration in collaboration with the Vermont Municipal Clerks' and Treasurers' Association, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and the Agency of Digital Services. January 15, 2019.

9 PUBLIC RECORDS GENERALLY What are they? Why are they important? How do they differ from other records?

10 DEFINITIONS United States, 44 U.S.C. 3301: (A) includes all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, made or received by a Federal agency under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the United States Government or because of the informational value of data in them; Vermont, 1 V.S.A. 317 : "public record" or "public document" means any written or recorded information, regardless of physical form or characteristics, which is produced or acquired in the course of public agency business. Individual salaries and benefits of and salary schedules relating to elected or appointed officials and employees of public agencies shall not be exempt from public inspection and copying.

11 LAW Public records are usually governed by an extensive body of law (Federal, State, local, international) that adds requirements related to: Format (prescription of particular analog or electronic formats) Retention (how long a record must be retained) Access (what must be provided to the public on demand, and typically in what timeframe) Protection (what must NOT be provided to the public)

12 IMPORTANTLY Public records are used in dozens of legal and business processes. Some examples include: Vital records (birth, death, marriage, divorce certificates) Licenses (professional, business) Permits (construction, land use, etc.) Deeds (and other instruments related to land ownership and use) Certificates (of good standing, of authority, etc.)

13 REQUIREMENTS FOR PUBLIC RECORDS (AND PROBABLY OTHER RECORDS, TOO) How do we establish standards for the effective, efficient, and systematic management and preservation of public records (and the information contained within)?

14 A FRAMEWORK FOR REQUIREMENTS GATHERING ISO-15489: Records Management 4 elements identified and defined for records, metadata, and systems that manage them: Authenticity Reliability Integrity Accessibility

15 AUTHENTICITY A record can be said to be authentic if it can be proven: a) To be what it purports to be b) To have been created or sent by the person purported to have created or sent it, and c) To have been created or sent at the time purported Thus, three elements are necessary to preserve authentic records: identity or uniqueness, authorship, and time.

16 RELIABILITY A record can be said to be reliable if it can be: trusted as a full and accurate representation of the transactions, activities, or facts to which they attest. In other words, can we trust the information contained within the record to be faithful to what actually happened?

17 INTEGRITY A record can be said to have integrity if it is: a) Complete b) Unaltered from its original form In other words, are we seeing the whole picture? Do we have complete context?

18 ACCESSIBILITY (AKA USEABILITY) A record can be said to be accessible or useable if it is: a) Able to be found b) Able to be retrieved (note: finding a record and retrieving a record are not necessarily the same) c) Able to be presented and interpreted in an intelligible manner In other words, if we can t find, access, or read a record, how much value does it have?

19 ACCESSIBILITY (AKA USEABILITY)

20 HOW IMPORTANT ARE THESE ELEMENTS? Standards for public records: Authenticity: MEDIUM TO HIGH Public records produced by a public agency are not usually required to be authenticated; but public records produced by a private entity might require authentication Reliability: HIGH Public records are often relied upon to establish fact Integrity: HIGH Records (esp. electronic record) without integrity might be unreadable or worse, misleading Accessibility: HIGH Most jurisdictions have laws permitting access to public records (such as FOIA) Some public records must be preserved BY LAW indefinitely

21 SUMMARY Public records are important; thus any system that stores, manages, preserves, or provides access to them must be robust. Legal requirements (including format, retention, etc.) place a high premium on having authentic, reliable, integral, and accessible public records.

22 BLOCKCHAIN FUNDAMENTALS What are blockchains? How do they work? And (why) do they matter?

23 BITCOIN Peer-to-peer electronic currency Solves the problem: I want to send money over the internet, but I don t know or trust anyone involved! Blockchain(s) = general term for this technology

24 BLOCKCHAINS: WHAT ARE THEY? A blockchain is an electronic ledger (register) of digital records, events, or transactions that are represented in condensed form known as a hash (digital security feature), authenticated, and maintained through a distributed or shared network of participants using a group consensus protocol (multiple users). (Vermont Report, 2016) A blockchain, is a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. (Wikipedia, 2019)

25 BLOCKCHAINS: HOW DO THEY WORK? Key elements: Public-key cryptography (hashes) Peer-to-peer networking (nodes) Validation or verification of said transactions Register of transactions in a distributed network (blocks)

26 BLOCKCHAINS: HOW DO THEY WORK? A brief step-by-step overview: 1. Something is transacted between Party A and Party B. 2. This transaction is recorded and timestamped. 3. These elements (transaction, timestamp, metadata) are encrypted. 4. This transaction is then broadcast to the network. 5. Nodes in the network validate these transactions using different protocols. 6. If valid, a number of transactions together sequentially complete a block, which is linked to the previous block.

27 BLOCKCHAINS: HOW DO THEY WORK? A block is a completed (verified) set of transactions that is then broadcast back to the network. Information contained in a block: Set of transactions (potentially thousands) Timestamp Location (in the chain) sometimes referred to as height Hash of the block Hash of the previous block Merkle root (we ll get to this one) Other metadata

28 BLOCKCHAINS: MERKLE TREES & ROOTS Image credit: Wikipedia

29 BLOCKCHAINS: WHY DOES THIS WORK? Public key cryptography ensures that people/organizations can transact business without trusting each other. Transaction and block data are small; encrypting and verifying transactions require computational power, so bigger = more expensive. Each block has a link to the previous block within it. That means it s very difficult to insert a false block since no future blocks would be linked to it. Compensation for nodes (usually in the form of currency) ensures that anonymous CPUs will spend resources to verify transactions and continue adding blocks. Since transactions (and sets of verified transactions in the form of blocks) are broadcast to the network, it s very likely that many nodes have copies of most transactions. Meaning that there is no single point-of-failure.

30 EVALUATING BLOCKCHAINS How do they stack up against our evaluation? And why does it matter?

31 TYPOLOGY OF BLOCKCHAIN SYSTEMS Mirror Type: blockchain as the repository for hashes Digital Record Type: records created in the blockchain itself Tokenized Type: items in the blockchain are tokens which stand in for objects in the real world See: Lemieux, Victoria A typology of Blockchain Recordkeeping Solutions and Some Reflections on their Implications for the Future of Archival Preservation.

32 BLOCKCHAIN AUTHENTICITY Blockchains score high on measures of authenticity: (if we remember our ISO standard measurement of authenticity) Measure To be what it purports to be To have been created or sent by the person purported to have created or sent it To have been created or sent at the time purported Blockchain Accomplishes? Consensus protocols validate and authenticate incoming transactions proving that they are well-formed Valid public-private key pairs aid in identity verification Timestamps included in blocks place the record firmly in time. Same for sequential blocks.

33 BLOCKCHAIN RELIABILITY Blockchains don t help all that much on measures of reliability (but external helper systems might: Measure Blockchain Accomplishes? Trusted as a full and accurate representation of the transactions, activities, or facts to which they attest Not really. Blockchain protocols validate that transactions are wellformed, not that any part of the transaction was real. Garbage in = garbage out.

34 BLOCKCHAIN INTEGRITY Blockchains score decently well on measures of integrity: Measure Blockchain Accomplishes? Complete Unaltered from its original form Blocks are necessarily internally consistent. A block can be separated from the chain and be proven to be authentic (thanks to Merkle Trees) Very likely. Distributed storage makes fault tolerance high.

35 BLOCKCHAIN ACCESSIBILITY Blockchains score poorly on measures of accessibility and useability: Measure Able to be found Able to be retrieved Able to be presented and interpreted in an intelligible manner Blockchain Accomplishes? Redundant storage at nodes increases likelihood of long-term storage. But there are no guarantees of preservation by nodes. There are numerous blockchain database sites. Right now it is easy to selectively retrieve individual blocks and transactions. Will it always be? Blocks have no inherent file format. Blocks are light on interpretation data but are quite structured. Understanding of individual blockchain protocol and structure is required for interpretation.

36 THE VERDICT Measure Authenticity Reliability Integrity Accessibility Score Very Good n/a* Very Good Questionable Important caveat: blockchains don t exist in a vacuum. Most blockchain solutions involve other software (e.g. document servers) that utilize blockchains for certain parts of the workflow.

37 THE VERDICT Important: No technology is perfect! Just because blockchains are not perfect, doesn t mean they don t add value. Additionally: blockchains will be used Blockchains ARE being used for recordkeeping purposes. In some respects, it doesn t matter if they meet our requirements or are good. We don t control what technology our records creators use! So what do we do?

38 ARCHIVAL IMPLICATIONS: TRUST Blockchains are ultimately about trust; public records are also about trust. So we ask: Can we trust our own records? Can others trust our records? Should others trust our records and recordkeeping processes?

39 ARCHIVAL IMPLICATIONS: CUSTODY What does it mean to have custody of a record? Does ownership really matter at all? Can we trust records that have left our custody? How do we continue to operate in a world of digital anonymity?

40 ARCHIVAL IMPLICATIONS: CONTEXT What is a record in a blockchain? A block? A transaction? Lots of work needs to be done on classifying and modeling for structured data. Can we preserve individual blocks without preserving the entirety of the chain? Can we trust others to do this for us? If we can t, doesn t that defeat the purpose of the blockchain?

41 ARCHIVAL IMPLICATIONS: SUSTAINABILITY Blockchains require processing power, and potentially lots of it. Is it really worth it for archives and other institutions to invest even in private blockchains? How expensive are individual transactions? Is it good enough to preserve hashes of records in blockchains? Are blockchains sustainable, especially those that are essentially optin? Are blockchains scalable? When blockchains fork, what do we do?

42 ARCHIVAL IMPLICATIONS: OTHER QUESTIONS Cryptographic security is not flawless; even well-built hashing algorithms will eventually experience collision or other attacks. Consensus protocol does not mean unbreakable. Acquiring enough power to beat consensus (51% of the network) is attainable in some cases. Are blockchains scalable?

43 RECOMMENDATIONS We need broader engagement between the blockchain community and the archives / electronic records community. Governments will need a way to ensure that blockchains have sufficiently robust controls (e.g. encryption algorithms, consensus protocols, etc.) to maximize good governance and recordkeeping if they can be used for public records. Some efforts have already begun, but the archives community must support feasibility studies of preserving individual blocks. If private blockchains (such as archives-run networks) are to be successful, the community needs to choose a model

44 QUESTIONS? Blockchains are complex, and this barely scratched the surface! I don t have all the answers but I might have some!

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