# Pre-publication Peer review!
###### tags: `The Timeline`

:::info
Hi there! Thanks for dropping by! If you would be so kind as to review the below possible chapter(s) for [*An Incomplete History of Research Ethics*](https://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/1753034/A-History-of-Research-Ethics/), please make sure you have the "split view" of this site (click **[here](https://hackmd.io/VW6SvaOYTemXnOd4SMcC4Q?both)** if you can't see two panes; note this is best viewed on tablets or larger screens), and either:
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# Texts for Review

| Title | Issue # | Begin pre-review | End pre-review |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CE 1991 How To Time-Stamp a Digital Document by Haber & Stornetta | [95](https://github.com/Ismael-KG/An_Incomplete_History_of_Research_Ethics/issues/95) | 04-Apr 2022 | 16-Apr 2022 |

## CE 1991 How To Time-Stamp a Digital Document by Haber & Stornetta
### Intro
Haber & Stornetta introduce the idea of "distributed trust" in the context of blockchain technology, the foundation of cryptocurrencies.
### The story
On 14 February 1876, Elisha Gray's lawyer paid the US Patent Office a visit. The lawyer was to apply for a "caveat," a sort of patent, for Gray's invention of a device that could transmit voice for people to communicate with one another. On the same day, Alexander Graham Bell's lawyer applied for a patent for Bell's device, which was rather similar. On that day, Bell got the patent and crowned himself as the inventor of the telephone. However, it is debateable that this was done fairly (Science Reference Section, Library of Congress, [2019](https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/item/who-is-credited-with-inventing-the-telephone/)). Ideally, the patent - or "caveat" - would have gone to whomever applied first. Whilst historians continue to discuss who really invented the telephone, Haber and Stornetta ([1991](https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00196791)) suggest a technological solution for cases like these.

In 1991, Haber and Stornetta proposed a computational approach to time-stamping documents. The aim was to ensure the validity of claims about documents' time-stamps. In other words, they wanted a system whereby activities concerning documents (creation, editing, sending, receiving...) could not have their time-stamps falsified. Haber and Stornetta speak of a time-stamping service (TSS), which would work much like Gray and Bell's Patent Office. However, the TSS might be corrupt or make mistakes. They suggest "hashing" as an approach to ensuring that claims are valid. A hash function is a function or method for converting data into a value of "fixed size." For example, hashing would convert the words "hello world" into a fixed size of 64 bits (of 1s and 0s) whilst "world hello" could result in another combination of 64 bits. The "collision-free hash function" (101) is one that converts a string of bits to another string of seemingly random bits. The key is that it is computationally infeasible to reconstruct the former string - which could be a text, an image or any digital document - with the latter. With this function, validating a timestamp is as simple as comparing it to its hash-function.

Haber and Stornetta then suggest that the TSS use "digital signatures" to confirm they have received a hash value and appended a time-stamp. This minimises the likelihood of error on their part. However, perhaps the most important feature of Haber and Stornetta's system is their idea of "distributed trust" (§5.2.). The question they respond to is no longer "how do we verify claims about time-stamps?" but "who verifies those verifications?"

They do argue for a second method for verifying validations, but it is distributed trust what has come to underlie the technology and philosophy of today's cryptocurrencies. In short, distributed trust amounts to having the majority of a network of surveyors confirm that a hash is correct. We might want to think about Gray and Bell's lawyers at the US Patent Office again. Rather than have a unique Patent Office - like the TSS -, we can picture everybody in the US who has an interest in patents needing to agree on who came in first. To make it more feasible, we need at least fifty percent of those individuals to confirm that Gray or Bell applied for the patent first. This way, for the information to be false, it would require an enormous conspiracy amongst at least fifty percent of the network. This is, at its simplest, the mechanism underpinning blockchain technology.

Haber & Stornetta's "distributed trust" for time-stamping needs just two more ingredients to become today's blokchain: money and blocks.

Recall that "hashing" cannot be effectively undone. This hash, in turn, is confirmed by a majority of a network - let's call them "peers." Where does the network keep their confirmed hashes? The pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto ([2009](https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/annual-national-training-seminar/2018/Emerging_Tech_Bitcoin_Crypto.pdf)) suggests a public ledger. This ledger, in turn, operates as a sequence of blocks of hashes; it maintains all past, network-confirmed hashes. This way, the difficulty of "reversing a hash" is compounded by its being in a chain of blocks - a blockchain.

The use of the term "ledger" already gives away what Nakamoto argued for: blockchain for cryptocurrencies substitutes bankers and accountants. We are no longer disagreeing with a possibly corrupt Patent Office, but a dubious financial system. What cryptocurrency does away with is the need for trust in a system that has failed time and time again.

Reading Nakamoto's paper in light of recent discussions about cryptocurrencies (e.g.: BBC, [2021](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57096305); Crypto Climate Accord, [2021](https://www.southpole.com/news/crypto-climate-accord-launches-to-decarbonize-cryptocurrency-industry); Francis, [2021](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-environmentally-sustainable-cryptocurrencies-invest-224849569.html); Volpicelli, [2021](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-ban-bitcoin-cryptocurrencies) gives way to a slight face-palm moment. In the abstract, we read:

"The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power" (ibid.: 1).

Translating this to a language I can try to understand: we can hold full trust in the blockchain if we use vast amounts of energy to maintain it. This is particularly true of Bitcoin, the energy for which we can track with the [Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption). However, it wasn't until 2017 when "proof-of work" - i.e.: proof that a peer has spent energy on confirming a hash - began to be seriously questioned (European Environment Agency, [2020](https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/blockchain-and-the-environment)). This seems to be slowly changing. Whatever we think of cryptocurrencies, it is positive to see a move towards more environmentally-friendly

There are at least three perspectives when analysing the ethics of cryptocurrencies: the underlying technology of blockchain, the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining, and the values upheld by some of those who partake in the use of cryptocurrencies, namely: automation for trust and transparency.

On the technological underpinning of blockchain, we discussed Haber and Stornetta's desire for a way to ensure that documents were accurately time-stamped. They had considered this as something of use in the context of intellectual property, using photographs as evidence, and large organisations with many official documents to keep track of. The applications they imagined were, to be frank, a little boring. They do not hint at the possibility of their ideas being applied to some "digital currency." And yet, just under two decades after their paper was published, a revolutionary form of banking emerged.

The financial system that hinges on Haber and Stornetta's approach to digital time-stamping seems completely unrelated to what the authors had in mind. What's more, the world of cryptocurrencies raises new ethical challenges, which could not have been foreseen by Haber and Stornetta. One important ethical challenge relates with the environmental impact of Bitcoin, as we have mentioned. We will see more ethical questions pertaining to cryptocurrencies below. But with the infeasibility of Haber and Stornetta predicting where their technology would end up, we have a troubling realisation: researchers cannot fully account for the ethical implications of their work.

With the above realisation, it seems that we can either gasp in terror at the prospect of having to conduct endless analyses to describe every possible future event, or simply shrug away any link between the self and "unintended consequences." Rather than either one of those extremes, I suggest researchers be creative when considering the ethical consequences of their work. This would not be to haphazardly guess at what the future holds, but to use scenario analysis to better understand the potential of their own work.

Regarding the moral values of those engaged in the world of cryptocurrencies, well, it is hard to say. It is not feasible to map the ethics of entire populations (although some have tried, like Awad et al., [2018](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0637-6)), but it might be possible to point to the politics of a certain technology (Winner, [1980](https://www.jstor.org/stable/20024652)). Recall, once again, Haber and Stornetta's move from the TSS, to a TSS with hashes, to a TSS with hashes and digital signatures, to hashes and digital signatures for a network of distributed trust. It should be no secret to users of cryptocurrencies - and related products and services - that they aim to do away with a need for trust in any one individual or organisation. Rather, they seek to distribute trust amongst a network of machines; they seek to automate trust.

This automation of trust is the first important value of a digital currency that quashes the need for a centralised banking system. The second is transparency. Recall that Nakamoto presented the idea of a ledger. This ledger, which underpins Bitcoin, is public. After all, at least fifty percent of the network's energy must be spent on confirming transactions. With this, Nakamoto notes that transparency might complicate the assurance of privacy. This is because transactions in the ledger could be linked to the individuals behind them. But Nakamoto claims - rest assured - that the blockchain has two mechanisms to break the link between individuals and their transactions (Nakamoto, [2009](https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/annual-national-training-seminar/2018/Emerging_Tech_Bitcoin_Crypto.pdf): 18).

Over the years, transparency has reigned supreme by virtue of the openness of blockchain technology. Indeed, privacy only later emerged as a concern that has required new applications (Kshetri, [2018](https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/N_Kshetri_Cryptocurrencies_2018.pdf); see also Frankenfield, [2020](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/z/zcash.asp)).

In sum, blockchain technologies seem to clearly uphold certain moral values above others. It provides a clear example of a technology that has its "own" politics. For the sceptics of such a claim, we can trace "the technology's politics" to its founders. People who have developed modern blockchain - amongst others, the people behind Nakamoto's name - have reproduced and amplified these values, which have been challenged; in part by the need for privacy, in part by the increasing understanding of its detrimental impact on the environment. Furthermore, due to its technical nature, it has become a technology for computer scientists and mathematicians - not to say cryptographers - to research and improve. Whether the values of the technology are held by its researchers is something for each of them to decide and, perhaps, communicate.

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:::warning
Check out [this list of stories](https://github.com/Ismael-KG/A-History-of-Research-Ethics/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22good+first+issue%22+label%3A%22Help+wanted%22+label%3AWIP) if you are looking for more stories to comment on!
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