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by viach 2757 days ago
What if the key leaked before you have thrown it away?
2 comments

That's a good question!

If your keys leaked, you'd probably have to assume you lost all of the data up to that point. To secure the data going forward, you'd need to generate a second key per user for all of the future data. Well, and hopefully shore up the security problems!

I agree, though, that an immutable ledger like this complicates things in a way that you-shouldn't-mutate-but-can datastores do not.

I think it's worse than just losing the data. If you operate a public cryptography ledger with users data in EU and do it under some company name, you won't be able to comply with the "right to be forgotten" or how it's called.

I'm currently working on this problem in application to blockchains. The plan ATM is to implement cryptographic snapshots of the data, where the old transactions are erased but their proof is available.

It's almost like regulations on remembering are a bad idea...
Probably the same as when the actual data is leaked.