About Linkmark

What is Linkmark?

Linkmark is an innovative system built on the secure Bitmark blockchain. It's designed to help you create verifiable connections between different pieces of digital information and make them discoverable. Think of it as a way to link a unique digital fingerprint (a hash) to a relevant web page (a link or URL) and a short (92 character) description about it.

These connections, or "marks," are permanently recorded, providing a transparent and trustworthy way to associate and retrieve related data.

How Linkmark Works

Linkmark primarily deals with three types of data to create meaningful associations:

• Hashes: Unique digital identifiers (like a fingerprint) for any piece of data.
• Links (URLs): Web addresses pointing to online resources where the actual data can be found.
• Descriptions (Descs): Short, concise summaries or keywords related to the data.

Linkmark creates associations by pairing two of these data types together (e.g., a hash with a link, or a link with a description). These pairings are then embedded as secure records on the Bitmark blockchain. This means the association itself is tamper-proof and permanently verifiable, though the full data (like a large file) isn't stored directly on the blockchain to maintain efficiency.

Discovering Information with Linkmark

Linkmark's power lies in its search capabilities. Once data is marked and associated:

• If you search for a specific hash, Linkmark will show you all the web links and descriptions that have been associated with that hash.
• If you search using a link (URL), you can find any hashes or descriptions connected to that web address.
• Searching by a description (desc) will reveal related hashes and links.

This allows you to uncover a web of related information starting from just one known piece of data.

Technical Highlights

For efficiency and security, Linkmark incorporates specific technical approaches:

• Efficient Data Referencing: The full data associated with a hash is typically too large for blockchain storage. Linkmark stores the links (URLs) on the blockchain, guiding you to where the full data resides online.
• Space-Saving Descriptions: Descriptions (descs) are encoded using a special format called Base38 (alphanumeric characters plus hyphen and underscore). This makes storage of descriptions more efficient.
• Secure Associations: The connections between data pairs are recorded on the Bitmark blockchain using secure transactions (specifically, 2-of-3 multi-signature transactions). In our setup, two parts of the transaction hold the data pair being associated, and the third part is used for control. This technical detail ensures the integrity and permanence of the recorded associations.