Constraining injection of unlocking transaction bytecode

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11528145-B2
Application number	US-201816615802-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 14, 2018
Priority date	May 22, 2017
Publication date	Dec 13, 2022
Grant date	Dec 13, 2022

Abstract

The invention relates to distributed ledge technologies such as consensus-based blockchains. The methods and systems of the present disclosure are provided for causing an injection of a serialized set of field values of an unlocking transaction into a locking script are described. The invention is implemented using a blockchain network, which may for example be a Bitcoin blockchain. A in first transaction to validate is received at a node in the blockchain network. The first transaction includes a first script that includes a set of field values of the first transaction and, as a result of being executed, causes the node to obtain a set of field values. A second transaction is obtained, with the second transaction having been validated. The second transaction includes a second script that, as a result of being executed, causes the node to generate a signature based at least in part on the set of field values supplied as a result of execution of the first script. The first transaction is validated by execution of the first script and the second script.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving, at a node in a blockchain network, a first transaction to validate, the first transaction including a first script that at least:
includes a set of field values of the first transaction; and
as a result of being executed, causes the node to obtain the set of field values;

obtaining a second transaction, the second transaction having been validated and including a second script that, as a result of being executed, causes the node to at least generate a signature based at least in part on the set of field values supplied as a result of execution of the first script; and
validating the first transaction by executing the first script and the second script.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein validating the first transaction is successfully performed without verifying that an entity that created the first transaction has access to secret information.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein:
the first script further includes a private cryptographic key of an asymmetric key pair;
the second script further causes the node to generate the signature based at least in part on the private cryptographic key and a mask number; and
validating the first transaction further includes validating that the signature is associated with a public cryptographic key of the asymmetric key pair.

4. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein:
the first script further specifies a signature hash type; and
the set of field values is based at least in part on the signature hash type.

5. The method claimed in claim 4 , wherein the signature hash type is a value that indicates which field values of the set of field values of the first transaction are to be included in the signature.

6. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein:
the second script is a locking script that imposes a set of conditions for validating the first transaction; and
execution of the locking script causes the node to validate the first transaction by determining whether the set of conditions have been fulfilled.

7. The method claimed according to claim 6 , wherein the first script is an unlocking script for satisfying the set of conditions of the second script.

8. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein validating the first transaction causes transfer of an unspent transaction output of the second transaction.

9. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein the node is a computing device that is communicatively coupled to at least one other node in the blockchain network.

10. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein the blockchain network is comprised of distributed electronic devices running an instance of a blockchain protocol.

11. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein the first script and second script are written using a Turing incomplete instruction set.

12. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein the first script and second script are written using a Turing complete instruction set.

13. The method claimed according to claim 1 , wherein the first script, by including the set of field values, causes the node, as a result of execution of the first script, to make the set of field values available as input to the second script.

14. A system, comprising:
a processor; and
memory including executable instructions that, as a result of execution by the processor, causes the system to perform the method of claim 1 .

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that, as a result of being executed by a processor of a computer system, cause the computer system to at least perform the method of claim 1 .

Assignees

• Nchain Licensing Ag

Inventors

• Chan Ying
• Kramer Dean

Classifications

• G06F21/64 Primary

  Protecting data integrity, e.g. using checksums, certificates or signatures · CPC title

• G06Q20/3825

  Use of electronic signatures · CPC title

• H04L9/50 Primary

  using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees · CPC title

• H04L9/3247

  involving digital signatures · CPC title

• H04L2209/56

  Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash · CPC title