verify_timestamp: Verify a timestamp of a hash
In rkrug/ROriginStamp: Interface to OriginStamp API to Obtain Trusted Time Stamps

verify_timestamp

R Documentation

Verify a timestamp of a hash

Description

There are effectively two ways of verifying a timestamp of a hash:

Usage

verify_timestamp(
  x,
  proof = NULL,
  use_originstamp = is.null(proof),
  error_on_fail = TRUE,
  url = api_url(),
  key = api_key()
)

Arguments

`x`	x an R object (character vector containing file names of existing files or strings) of which a hash will be calculated using the function `hash(x)`. The object whose timestamp should be verified
`proof`	either a file name or an URL pointing to the proof or certificate of the timestamp
`use_originstamp`	if `TRUE`, OriginStamp will be used to verity the timestamp of the hash. In this case, `proof` is not needed.
`error_on_fail`	if TRUE, raise error when api call fails, otherwise return the failed response.ß
`url`	the url of the api. The default is to use the url as returned by the function `api_url()`
`key`	the api key. The default is to use the key as returned by the function `api_key()`

Details

to use OriginStamp. This is the easies approach and is described on their documentation site. Similarly, when specifying use_originstamp = TRUE the api will be used to retrieve information about the timestamp using the get_hash_status() function.
to not use OriginStamp. This directly queries the bitcoin blockchain. The host used to verify without the proof is not available anymore. Therefore this part does not work anymore. It is only included as an example how it could be done using a different host

For this, it is essential to have either the xml proof or the pdf certificate of the timestamp as can be downloaded by the function extract_proof(). Here, we assume that all verification should be done without any interaction with OriginStamp. Only timestamps issued after middle February 2021 can be veryfied using this approach (OP_RETURN usage by OriginStamp.