Company Name: Simple proof
Founder: Rafael Cordon and Christian Lowenthal
Established date: February 2023
Headquarters: Guatemala
Amount of Bitcoin held by the Treasury: N/A
Number of employees: 6
Website: https://www.simpleproof.com/
Public or private? private
In the age of digital records, how do you know that your data hasn’t been tampered with? Rafael (Rafa) Cordon has the answer.
To preserve the integrity of actual information, especially government documents, he Simple proofA company that secures official data via the Bitcoin blockchain.
A lot of people got to know about this company last year. Preventing fraud in Guatemala’s presidential electionsBut Simple Proof’s mission is bigger than that.
“We will maintain the integrity of the information in the public records,” Cordon told Bitcoin Magazine.
“Elections are not our focus. Elections are just the first use case. We’re focused on (protecting) public records, which are information that governments create,” he added.
So how exactly does Simple Proof maintain the integrity of your information?
A simple proof mechanism
Simple Proof was developed by Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd. Open Timestamp It is a protocol that utilizes hash functions to timestamp information onto an immutable blockchain.
Cordon explains the process in layman’s terms:
“First, we take a hash of the document, which you can think of as a digital fingerprint. Every document has a very unique digital fingerprint, a string of characters.
Bitcoin transactions have a space where you can write any text, called the OP_RETURN function. This is similar to how when you write a check there is a little line in the bottom right that says “Notes” where you can write any text to remind you what this check is for. You can think of the OP_RETURN function as a note space in a Bitcoin transaction.
Within this “memo” space, we store a hash, or digital fingerprint. This hash is included in Bitcoin transactions. When a transaction is published, it is included in a block and stored immutably. This means that this digital fingerprint is stored forever within a Bitcoin block.”
Cordón clarified that the hash isn’t contained within any particular document, but rather the hash in OP_RETURN is the “root hash” of a Merkle tree, which is a tree of hashes across multiple documents.
In this way, OpenTimestamps can prove an unlimited number of documents with a single OP_RETURN entry. Merkle trees allow you to efficiently prove that a piece of data was in the tree.
However, it is important to note that Simple Proof does not guarantee the authenticity of the data you store on the Bitcoin blockchain, which is still the responsibility of governments or agencies overseeing elections.
In the case of Guatemala’s presidential elections, approximately 200,000 volunteers and observers from various political parties participated. The voting process was monitored to prevent fraud.The details are explained in the documentary. Enduring Democracy:
Who uses Simple Proof?
Cordon and his team are in talks with government officials interested in using Simple Proof, as well as private companies that work with governments.
“There are two types of customers,” Cordon explains. “One is government employees who have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the information within their agencies and could be in trouble if that information is changed without their permission. The other is technology vendors who are asked by the government to create or process information. They have the same problem: ‘I don’t want to be accused of changing information.'”
Simple Proof recently landed a second client, though Cordon wouldn’t say who it is, saying the government has hired it to develop an application for managing public records.
“They’re not going to make the verification page publicly available,” Cordon said.
“Instead, they will store the evidence privately and have the option to make it public if they need to authenticate the document in the future. This approach acts as a kind of digital insurance,” he added.
Cordon believes this approach of creating private, verifiable proofs will become increasingly important not only to governments but also to other institutions and individuals.
Regarding cooperation with public officials, Cordon emphasized one point in particular.
“For Simple Proof to work, authorities have to want to use it,” Cordon explained.
“That was the case in Guatemala. The authorities were concerned about being accused of electoral fraud, so they wanted to take advantage of the system,” he added.
Simple Proof Voting fraud in the recent Venezuelan presidential electionCordon disagreed.
“In Venezuela, it’s likely that electoral authorities never wanted transparency in the first place,” Cordon said.
“Simple Proof only works if customers want transparency. If they don’t want transparency, they wouldn’t want[our service],” he added.
Cordon went on to say that Simple Proof aims to work with officials in established democracies around the world.
“I never want to work with an undemocratic regime,” he said.
Progress in simple proofs
Earlier this year, Carlos Toriello (Carliño) joined the Simple Proof team.
Torriero oversaw the voting audit of Guatemala’s presidential election, the results of which were secured with the help of Simple Proof.
“He conducted the audit as a citizen and as part of a civil society movement called Digital Witness. Finance Digital“Digital Witness was obtaining documents released by election authorities and verifying them with Simple Proof to ensure their authenticity,” Cordon explained.
Toriello assembled a crowdsourced team. StackworkA chore app that allows participants to earn Bitcoin by completing tasks.
Thousands of participants will vote on their mobile phones, comparing their votes with those recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain via Simple Proof. soil For their work.
“Digital Witness has confirmed that the election results are 99% accurate,” Cordon said.
Torriello is currently using Simple Proof to help ensure the integrity of election results in a US county.
He is reaching out to U.S.-based Bitcoin meetup groups to encourage them to help their counties adopt Simple Proof in their next elections.
“The meeting is kind of a race to see which county in the United States can be the first to do this,” Cordon said.
As a prize, Simple Proof will document the adoption of its technology in the United States in a short film. Enduring Democracy.
“Making a documentary or sending a film crew over would give them an opportunity to really document this and show the world that they were the first people to do it,” Cordon said.
Beyond simple proofs
While Cordon is excited to have developed a tool to combat disinformation, he also fully understands that Simple Proof is just one of many defenses against it.
“We’re very concerned about the way AI tools are evolving,” Cordon said. “We need something like Simple Proof to protect against AI-driven misinformation.”
Cordon also said government officials need to be careful about how they create documents, and he believes digital signatures can play a role in authenticating documents when they are issued.
“We are advising governments to use digital signatories that are at least: Yubikey“So when someone scans a document, the person who has control of the YubiKey signs it, creating a signature that gets put into the blockchain,” Cordon said.
But even with technology like the YubiKey, Cordon remains concerned.
“It’s difficult to prove who generated the information and whether this digital information is based solely on input from the real world or on input that has already been manipulated,” Cordon explained.
“How can you prove that?” he asked sternly.
“This is an open question, but it’s going to be very important over the next decade.”
