Would it be possible to implement a feature where something along the lines of the following happens?:
- Athena stores a public file on the network, but encrypted. She uses this new feature to dictate that the encryption key will be released in 300 years.
- Multiple other people take shared ownership of the encrypted file. The network confirms to these people that their copies of the file will be decrypted in 300 years.
- Athena decides that actually she’d rather the file never become public, but is unable to do anything about it.
- If anyone still has ownership of the file, the network decrypts their copies.
There’s no reliable time-bomb like this in existence, but if everyone’s computers have to agree that it’s currently a particular date, then it’s seems more feasible.
This way, Athena could post a diary, a confession, government-restricted information, a hotly anticipated single from her next album, source code as part of a ‘provably-temporary closed-source’ project, predictions of future events to show that she’s a time-traveller without causing a temporal paradox etc.
If Athena’s account were comprimised in the meantime, the attackers would have no way to prevent the network from decrypting the file when appropriate.
In the case of whistle-blowing, leaks could be scheduled so that as one public file (leak) is decrypted, a file shared with a government is also decrypted, the latter file containing a courtesy warning of what the next leak will be.
(I know no programming stuff)