Inmetro Unicorn Application

About this page

This is a prototype of a random number service using the Unicorn protocol.

It allows users to publish their own seeds within a time frame. At last, the received values are combined by using a pre-defined VDF. The main purpose of this prototype is to propose a secure combination of beacons’ results by using a Verifiable Delay Function(VDF). It has been built based on Lenstra and Wesoloski(2018) proposal.

There are 3 possible states

• Closed: Waiting for next 9-minute time slot for contributions
• Open: Open for external contributions
• Running: Verifiable Delay Funcition is running

Comments:

• All contributions received from external entities on the web are grouped with the results of Inmetro's Combination Beacon during a time slot. After, they are combined and submitted to the VDF, and the service publishes the random number just before the next Inmetro beacon number is published
• After the running state, the results are signed, stored and published together with all parameters used to execute the algorithm
• Prototype allows a verification of the generated numbers via public API route
• VDF is not performed if there are no contributions

The service is available via a public REST API. Consumers need to provide a pulse generation time in POSIX format. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time for more information and http://www.epochconverter.com for an online timestamp converter.

Current State:
beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/current
Example: beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/current

Previous Pulse:
beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/previous/<timestamp>
Example: beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/previous/1679538600000

Next Pulse:
beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/next/<timestamp>
Example: beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/next/1679538600000

Last Available Pulse:
beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/last
Example: beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/last

First Pulse:
beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/first
Example: beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn/first



Post a value:
URI: beacon.inmetro.gov.br/beacon/2.0/vdf/unicorn
Method: POST
Content-Type: Content-Type: application/json
Body:

{ "seed": "myseedValue", "description": "my description", "uri": "my uri" }

If a request for a Pulse results in no Pulse found, a 404 response is returned.

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