But somewhere, in the shadows, or in a free land somewhere in the world, a proof-of-work blockchain lives on. It contains timestamped sha256sums of manifest files of videos, which in turn contain sha256sums of the videos. It proves that certain pieces of data existed at certain times. Once the regime falls, the authentic videos can be determined by the hashes that were published before the regime came to power.
Is anybody talking about this scenario and/or remedy? Maybe there's a less alarmist version to consider as well.
The powerful will never willingly give away their power. Developing tools that can take power away from the powerful (which will require a fight and personal risk for the fighters) or helping the powerless become more powerful seems infinitely more useful and practical.
"God made Man, Sam Colt made 'em equal..." Figuring out ways to make billionaires "equal" will do far more to help freedom and reduce oppression than some notion of historical book keeping. Figuring out how to credibly threaten consequences for billionaires seems like a much higher priority than helping future historians. Maybe the best threat is collective bargaining and tools to help collectively bargain would be a much better investment.
If the educated are able to exercise power, then the need for protecting history from those who wish to manipulate it isn't as much of a problem.
I'll take a crack at this since it's ultimately where I land. People will just get wise to it and "videos" of stuff will eventually be seen as trustworthy as "someone's words" of stuff. There was a time before video technology and I suspect we're headed for something similar to that. At least with respect to trust in historical documentation.
The question is- what is the incentive to burn gas (re: money) to timestamp the manifests before the regime comes into power?