How Existence Record Protects Your Privacy

DreamForge's Existence Record is a unique feature that lets you prove your dreams and ideas existed at a specific time without revealing their content. This article explains how this privacy-preserving proof system works.

Why Privacy Matters

Dreams, ideas, and visions are deeply personal. While you may want to prove they existed at a certain point in time by recording them on blockchain, you don't want to expose their content to the entire world.

DreamForge's Existence Record uses a cryptographic technique called a commitment scheme to achieve both goals simultaneously.

How It Works: The Commitment Scheme

Step 1: Salt Generation

First, we generate a random 256-bit "salt" - a secret value known only to you, stored securely in DreamForge's database.

Salt = Random 64-character hexadecimal
Example: a7b3c9e2f1d4...

Step 2: Hash Calculation

Next, we combine your content with the salt to compute a SHA-256 hash.

Hash = SHA-256(Title + "\n" + Content + ":" + Salt)

SHA-256 is a one-way function. It's computationally infeasible to reverse the hash back to the original content. Adding the salt ensures that even identical content produces different hashes.

Step 3: Blockchain Recording

Only this hash value is recorded on the Solana blockchain. The original content is never stored on-chain.

On-chain record: DREAMFORGE:v1:{hash}:{dreamId}
Example: DREAMFORGE:v1:8a3b9c2e1f...:{UUID}

Why This Protects Your Privacy

1. Hashes Are One-Way

Recovering the original content from a SHA-256 hash is practically impossible with current technology. This is a fundamental principle of cryptography.

2. Salt Prevents Guessing

Even if an attacker guesses "did this user write this content?", they can't compute the correct hash without knowing the salt. The salt is stored off-chain (in DreamForge's database) and never published to the blockchain.

3. Brute Force Resistance

With a 256-bit salt, trying to guess the content by brute-forcing hashes would take longer than the age of the universe.

How Verification Works

When you want to prove "this content existed at this time":

1. Provide the original content and salt
2. Recalculate the hash
3. Compare with the on-chain hash

If they match, you've proven that the content existed at the blockchain's recorded timestamp.

Technical Details

Legal Standing

Important note: This existence record is not equivalent to legal notarization or a certified timestamp. However, it serves as valuable supplementary evidence in situations like:

• Proving creation date in copyright disputes
• Establishing priority in idea theft cases
• Documenting invention dates internally
• Proving pre-disclosure of ideas before contracts

The immutability and third-party verifiability of blockchain records may be recognized as compelling evidence in court.

Future: Zero-Knowledge Proofs

The current commitment scheme is a stepping stone toward full zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs). Future possibilities include:

• Proving content contains specific keywords without revealing it
• Aggregating dream patterns while keeping individual content private
• Selective disclosure (prove parts, keep the rest secret)

These features are under consideration for future updates.

Summary

DreamForge's Existence Record uses cryptographically secure methods to prove your dreams and ideas existed at a specific time. No content is ever published to the blockchain - only a salted hash that protects your privacy.

This mechanism is based on the same principles as secure password storage (bcrypt, Argon2, etc.). Even with the algorithm public, security is maintained as long as the salt remains secret.

Start using DreamForge today and prove your dreams and ideas exist!