tablet iv · the machine
The machine
A point on a curve that nobody can open, kept in the spring as a tripwire. The day someone opens it, the curves are broken, and the spring stops trusting proofs.
The point
The spring keeps a point P on BLS12-381, made from a hash of a fixed phrase:
u = ( keccak256("LETHE: the machine 0") ‖ keccak256("LETHE: the machine 1") ) mod p
P = MAP_FP_TO_G1(u), the EIP-2537 map
P = MAP_FP_TO_G1(u), the EIP-2537 map
Because P came out of a hash, nobody chose it, and nobody knows the number k with k·G = P. Finding that k is a discrete logarithm on the curve: the thing a quantum computer would do, and nothing else known can. Your browser recomputes all of it below.
Try a k
Your browser multiplies the generator by k and compares it with P. Nothing is sent.
Feed the jar
Anyone may add ETH to the jar. It pays whoever proves the machine, and nothing else can take it out.
after the machine
What changes, the block it is proven
- The spring records the block and pays the jar to whoever sent k.
- Every proof is refused from then on, and so are new notes.
- Notes still leave, by the exit: a mark, an hour, then the note's own secrets. It needs only the hash, which the machine does not break. It is public: it names the note.
Limits
- The tripwire helps only if the first person with the machine trips it before forging proofs. One who prefers the spring's balance to the jar will not.
- Whoever sees k in a pending transaction can claim the jar first. Send it privately.