Timestamping

The idea of timestamping information to verifiably establish a time at which a object existed is not new. For digital data, trusted timestamping protocols, which rely on asymmetric cryptography, are used to prove that data has existed and has remained unaltered since a certain point in time (Haber and Stornetta, 1991, Schneier, 1996).  These techniques all relay upon a universal and centralised trusted absolute  source of time, which is problematic and technically impossible to achieve. The sentinel service does not rely upon a trusted time source or even seek to establish a globally unique absolute "time" context for a digital object. Its seeks to establish a space-time or of precedence, which can prove that one digital object existed with a proven temporal relationship to another digital object in the same space-time continuum. 

Sample: Proof Certificate

Legal Title

Legal title is the actual ownership of the property. A title deed is a statement that only pertains to the rightful ownership over a particular property. The vaulted object possession, coupled with provable ownership and provence describes the person with legal title. Legal title grants true ownership of the property, and all that this entails – the bundle of rights that comes with property ownership. Legal title is a perfected ownership interest that's enforceable by law. 

Ownership of property refers to the legal right to exclude others from the specific thing owned. Aside from the right to exclude others from using property, ownership rights often include the right to possess, to use, to transfer, and to commercialise the property. A property owner with legal title can take legal action against parties that attempt to infringe upon one's ownership rights. 

The vaulted object, is the legal document which conveys title in the property from one person to another, along with the associated ownership provence. As such it can be subject to inheritance law claims and bailment.

Transfer of Legal Title

A transfer of a digital object has significant legal and practical consequences, including in relation to the legal requirements for an effective transfer. The distinction between things in possession and things in action is important in this respect. Delivery of possession is historically legally effective to transfer a thing in possession, but delivery of possession is not possible for intangibles or things in action. Things in action are usually transferred by assignment or novation and often are predicated upon specific and local statue to give effect to the action..  

The transfer of a vaulted digital object is legally achieved via a) the transfer of possession of the digital object and the b) transfer of legal title over the vaulted object via the embedded Deed. The digital object contains a  complete and publicly verifiable history, of title provenance from its point of legal immobilisation. 

Space  Time Continuum...

Because space consists of 3 dimensions, and time is 1-dimensional, space-time must, therefore, be a 4-dimensional object. It is believed to be a 'continuum' because so far as we know, there are no missing points in space or instants in time, and both can be subdivided without any apparent limit in size or duration. So, physicists now routinely consider our world to be embedded in this 4 dimensional Space-Time continuum, and all events, places, moments in history, actions and so on are described in terms of their location in Space-Time. Space-time does not evolve, it simply exists. When we examine a particular object from the stand point of its space-time representation, every particle is located along its world-line.  This is a spaghetti-like line that stretches from the past to the future showing the spatial location of the particle at every instant in time. This world-line exists as a complete object which may be sliced here and there so that you can see where the particle is located in space at a particular instant. Once you determine the complete world line of a particle from the forces acting upon it, you have 'solved' for its complete history. This world-line does not change with time, but simply exists as a timeless object.

The Sentinel Proof-of-Existence makes use of spacetime to create a single concreate space-time continuum for each valued object.

The Physical World of Legal Title

Land originally granted by the Crown was subsequently held and dealt with under the English general law system of tenure through the issue of a deed of conveyance. All subsequent dealings with the land required verification of the validity of the deed under transfer by searching (at each and every transaction) the previous chain of history of the deed for a period of up to 30 years preceding the transfer, to ensure there was proof of a good root of title and that there were no legal impediments to the effectiveness of the deed transfer.  In order to achieve this result each and every transfer of title was recorded on the title deed that was physically passed between owners  via the act of possession of the Title Deed itself. 

It was soon realized that there was no guarantee that all the interests in the land had been uncovered through the records embedded in the Title deed  recordings and/or searching, and that previous encumbrances, such as  outstanding land taxes and defects and deficiencies could easily pass to a new owner.  Title Deeds were established under various Acts of Parliaments to protect purchasers and mortgagees through the registration of all conveyancing transactions at a single State–controlled repository, thus simplifying searching of land records and associated  encumbrances  for further dealings with parcels of land. Its key feature is that it captures all interests in a property, including transfers, mortgages, leases, easements, covenants, resumptions and other rights in a single Land Title which, once registered with the State by a Recorder of Titles, is guaranteed correct by the State. 

Most deeds must contain several essential elements to be legally valid: 

• They must be in writing. While most deeds are completed on printed forms, there is no legal requirement that any specific form is used as long as the essential elements are included.

• The grantor must have the legal capacity to transfer the property and the grantee must be capable of receiving the grant of the property. A person who is competent to make a valid contract is considered competent to be a grantor.

• The grantor and grantee must be identified in such a way as to be ascertainable.

• The property must be adequately described.

• Operative words of conveyance must be present.

• The deed must be signed by the grantor or grantors if the property is owned by more than one person.

• The deed must be legally delivered to the grantee or to someone acting on the grantee's behalf.

• The deed must be accepted by the grantee. Typically, deeds are accepted by the grantee but in certain circumstances, the grantee could reject delivery of the deed.

Registration of Title

In both Anglo-American and civil law the sale of a movable is both a contract and a conveyance. In both Anglo-American and French law the contract also serves to transfer the title to the thing unless the parties agree otherwise. German law, on the other hand, following Roman law, requires that there be a handing over of the thing from the seller to the buyer before title may pass. Indeed, in German law title to the thing will pass even if there is no valid contract of sale, so long as the parties intend to transfer ownership of the thing. All systems hold as a basic principle that one cannot transfer more rights in a thing than one holds. Property Deeds, are the legal documents that transfer title from one person to another.   

At common law, the requirements for executing a deed are that it must be in writing, sealed and delivered to the other party. 

Hence while deeds of title do not require registration , recording deeds to real property, subsequent to delivery and acceptance, in a public register makes the deed a  public document. Recording them in a public register acts as defacto notice to all third parties as to ownership in the property. Note that a bona fide purchaser is one who has reasonable cause to believe that title is vested in him or her, e.g. either by mistake or fraud, a person granted a false deed to the bona fide purchaser. In certain circumstances a bona fide purchaser may even have superior rights to the property over the actual title holder. If one records the deed, then there can be no bona fide purchasers (unless one acts oneself to void one’s deed) since notice of true ownership is given to the world. Thus, recording increases the protection of the deed.

The person in whose name the property stands on the register is the legal owner of the land; or, in less scientific, but no less accurate, language, the property always goes with the certificate. For example, let us suppose that John Smith is the registered owner of a property, and that he wishes to convey it to Thomas Jones. He executes a deed of the property, as now, to Jones; but that does not pass title to the property. He gives Jones also his certificate of title to the property. Upon acceptance of the transfer of Title from John Smith, Thomas Jones submits John Smiths certificate or "proof of possession"  to the registrar who acting upon the authority of the Title, issues a new "proof of possession" or certificate to Thomas Jones. The legal title of the property is now  with Thomas Jones. The register purports to deal solely with the legal title of the property via the issuance of a "proof of exitance of a property Title with guaranteed ownership province to from the point of the property creation or legal immobilisation. In essence the registry provides an independent means to verify the holder of the "proof" or certificate is the current owner of the legal title as nominated in the property Title ownership chain.

The fact that the title to property is always in a registered owner makes a Statute of Limitations unnecessary; for as no party could acquire an apparent but invalid title to which after the lapse of time his right ought to be protected, the whole justification for a title by lapse of time is lacking.  The devolution of property upon the owner's death is much simplified. The current possessor of the property title, must also provide a "proof" or certificate that the property Title is the current Title, and all other claims of Title must temporally precede the claim. 

This is the function offered by the "Sentinel Service" as described above..