Tweetstamp.org Use OpenTimestamps for Tweets Against the Bitcoin Blockchain

tweetstamp.org screenshot

Tweetstamp.org is a twitter bot that uses OpenTimestamps to append the hash of a tweet to the bitcoin blockchain.

A timestamp proves that a message existed prior to some point in time; timestamps are occasionally referred to as “proofs-of-existence”. Being able to prove that data existed prior to a point in time is surprisingly useful.

Peter Todd’s announcement on OpenTimestamps gives a clear explanation on the uses of a trust-minimized timestamping infrastructure. For more info check out lopp.net/bitcoin Data Anchoring section.

Anyone can Inspect Element to edit and take a screenshot of the hot takes found on twitter dot com. Screenshots should not be trusted, yet are sometimes the only thing people will see in a viral tweet. With tweetstamp.org, I hope to provide people with useful data on the existence of a tweet.

My philosopy for creating this service:

  • Everything you post online is permanent. No backsies.
  • Tweets are becoming more significant in importance than ever before in all fields.
  • Deleted tweets and the act of deleting a tweet can be considered more important in context.
  • I want to preserve the tweets I really like forever even after deletion, removal, or author suspension and then reference them in the future.

Here are just some of my favorite tweets that would a tragety if they were lost.

Give it a try

This app definitely needs some real world stress testing so I can see the limits of the Twitter Webhook API and any bottlenecks within tweetstamp. DM @tweet_stamp with the link of the tweet you want to stamp or reply to a tweet you want stamped by mentioning @tweet_stamp and the keyword stamp.

Balancing the replying rules was a challenge I noticed right away after the announcement tweet. I initially setup the reply logic so that tweetstamp would respond if it was the only mentioned user in a reply. This is to prevent unintentional stamping of every tweet in a thread and to also not clutter peoples mentions. The problem is most people don’t do this so I added the rule where you have to use the keyword stamp (demo) so the user is explictly requesting engagement.

In Development

I wanted to put out something simple and working to then iterate on. This tweet above is one of the many things I want to add like:

  • Tweet deletion detection
  • Automatically render a screenshot from the status page of a tweet on twitter.com
  • Relay media content within a tweet to archiving services.
  • (Broader Idea) Enhance Your Twitter archive so a user could upload their data and have it all stamped.

Raspberry Pi Cable and Power Management with the Bitscope Blade

blade-header

I like to run all sorts of stuff using my Raspberry Pis from asp.net core and node.js servers to relay nodes and backup servers. But if I need lots of external storage (more than afforable flash drives offer), then I need to have a powered USB hub because a Raspberry Pi does not output enough power for my internal hard drives that I connect via SATA to USB. This solution can quickly become a nest of cables and you may find yourself running out of ports or power sockets. The Bitscope Blade Quattro lets me clear up cable clutter and scale out for future additions.

The Blade 🗡

On January 23rd 2017 Newark announced exclusive global availability of the Bitscope Blades. Bitscope is a hardware company known for their test and measure equipment like the Bitscope Raspberry Pi Oscilloscope.

blades

I got the Quattro on sale through Newark for ~$50 (usually $55). Note that this does not come with a power supply but it is compatiable with DC power sources from 9V to 48V. I was able to use an existing charger I had from my bluetooth speaker.

Before

before I’m using 2 powered USB hubs and one of the hubs is powering all the Pis. I do have room to connect the second Pi and hard drive to the Belkin hub but I did not want to risk disruption of the other hard drive or deal with mounting issues on reboot. I have not found too much information on the topic of multi-drive multi-pi on one powered USB hub so let me know if you found it easy to manage.

After

after

Using Other SoCs

One of the coolest parts of the Blade, that they don’t explictly tell you about, is that it can power other 40-pin SoC boards. Bruce from Bitscope mention this in his talk SLUG May 2016 - Bitscope Raspberry Pi Cluster:

This is not limited to just Raspberry Pi… There’s Odroid and there’s Banana Pi. They have the same form factor that can plug into a Bitscope Blade.

I don’t own any other boards yet to try it out but my next purchases will probably be the Rock64 because it has a 4GB option which the Raspberry Pi won’t be getting anytime soon in my opinion. Here are some boards with 40 pin GPIO that might work with the blade:

  • Rock 64

  • Banana Pi

  • Asus Tinker Board

Future Additions

jumperpack

If power supplies aren't your thing, there is a more metal🤘 option

The M3 Copper mounting holes on the ends of the blade enables even more consoildation of power in a Rack of 20 and fit nicely in a standard 19” server rack. Overall I’m pretty happy with just my one Blade but it’s cool to see how easy it is to upgrade to a legit cluster rack.