Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology

Archives have well-established practices which have been developed over years of working with analogue records. Now they face huge challenges due to the inexorable development of digital technologies. Not only is the heterogeneous nature of the records, their instability and the rapid pace of techno...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mark Bell, Alex Green, John Sheridan, John Collomosse, Daniel Cooper, Tu Bui, Olivier Thereaux, Jez Higgins
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ubiquity Press 2019-06-01
Series:Insights: The UKSG Journal
Subjects:
DLT
Online Access:https://insights.uksg.org/articles/470
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spelling doaj-b8b2c30db05e4cbda39d0b2bbcc80d762020-11-25T01:09:25ZengUbiquity PressInsights: The UKSG Journal 2048-77542019-06-0132110.1629/uksg.470436Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technologyMark Bell0Alex Green1John Sheridan2John Collomosse3Daniel Cooper4Tu Bui5Olivier Thereaux6Jez Higgins7Researcher, The National ArchivesDigital Archivist, The National ArchivesDigital Director, The National ArchivesProfessor of Computer Vision, University of SurreyResearch Software Developer, University of SurreyPostgraduate Research Student, University of SurreyHead of Technology, Open Data InstituteConsultant Software Engineer, Open Data InstituteArchives have well-established practices which have been developed over years of working with analogue records. Now they face huge challenges due to the inexorable development of digital technologies. Not only is the heterogeneous nature of the records, their instability and the rapid pace of technological development a threat to the records’ survival, but the ease with which digital records can be altered has put archives in a technology arms race with those parties who would seek to falsify our digital inheritance and undermine democracy. In order to tackle these challenges, the ARCHANGEL project is breaking new ground by using blockchain to record checksums (cryptographic hashes) and other metadata derived from either scanned physical records or born-digital records to allow verification of their integrity over decade- or century-long time spans. This data is permanently preserved through peer-to-peer distribution and consensus checking without the need for a trusted third party, thereby enabling archives to prove the authenticity of the records in their custody.https://insights.uksg.org/articles/470Distributed ledger technologyDLTblockchaintrusted archivesdocument provenance
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Mark Bell
Alex Green
John Sheridan
John Collomosse
Daniel Cooper
Tu Bui
Olivier Thereaux
Jez Higgins
spellingShingle Mark Bell
Alex Green
John Sheridan
John Collomosse
Daniel Cooper
Tu Bui
Olivier Thereaux
Jez Higgins
Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology
Insights: The UKSG Journal
Distributed ledger technology
DLT
blockchain
trusted archives
document provenance
author_facet Mark Bell
Alex Green
John Sheridan
John Collomosse
Daniel Cooper
Tu Bui
Olivier Thereaux
Jez Higgins
author_sort Mark Bell
title Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology
title_short Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology
title_full Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology
title_fullStr Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology
title_full_unstemmed Underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology
title_sort underscoring archival authenticity with blockchain technology
publisher Ubiquity Press
series Insights: The UKSG Journal
issn 2048-7754
publishDate 2019-06-01
description Archives have well-established practices which have been developed over years of working with analogue records. Now they face huge challenges due to the inexorable development of digital technologies. Not only is the heterogeneous nature of the records, their instability and the rapid pace of technological development a threat to the records’ survival, but the ease with which digital records can be altered has put archives in a technology arms race with those parties who would seek to falsify our digital inheritance and undermine democracy. In order to tackle these challenges, the ARCHANGEL project is breaking new ground by using blockchain to record checksums (cryptographic hashes) and other metadata derived from either scanned physical records or born-digital records to allow verification of their integrity over decade- or century-long time spans. This data is permanently preserved through peer-to-peer distribution and consensus checking without the need for a trusted third party, thereby enabling archives to prove the authenticity of the records in their custody.
topic Distributed ledger technology
DLT
blockchain
trusted archives
document provenance
url https://insights.uksg.org/articles/470
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