Trusted timestamping

Trusted timestamping is the process of securely keeping track of the creation and modification time of a document.

Security here means that no one—not even the owner of the document—should be able to change it once it has been recorded provided that the timestamper's integrity is never compromised.

Sir Isaac Newton, in responding to questions from Leibniz in a letter in 1677, concealed the details of his "fluxional technique" with an anagram: Trusted digital timestamping has first been discussed in literature by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta.

This standard has been applied to authenticating digitally signed data for regulatory compliance, financial transactions, and legal evidence.

With the advent of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, it has become possible to get some level of secure timestamp accuracy in a decentralized and tamper-proof manner.

Tampering with the timestamp would require more computational resources than the rest of the network combined, and cannot be done unnoticed in an actively defended blockchain.

[5] The decentralized timestamping approach using the blockchain has also found applications in other areas, such as in dashboard cameras, to secure the integrity of video files at the time of their recording,[6] or to prove priority for creative content and ideas shared on social media platforms.