Apostille implementation questions

Technical Discussion
#1

Not sure if this should go under Technical Discussions or General, so I am trying my luck here :). Also posted this on the Bitcointalk forum, but there does not seem to be a lot of knowledgeable traffic there. lol!

So here is a repost of my Bitcointalk post:

Wow, I only read the Apostille white paper yesterday - this is awesome! I am NEM’s newest fan Wink

I would like to implement a solution on NEM/Apostille for notarizing (that the correct word?) academic degrees and certificates. I think there might be a market for such a solution at the institutions in my city.

Based on this (and the fact that Apostille seems to be designed exactly for this need), I have a few questions, which I hope the community can assist me with:

  1. Would one be able to notarize a BATCH of academic degrees/certificates? Either via some BASH scripting or API calls? Notarizing hundreds of degrees/certificates manually will be murder Tongue
  2. Can documents be stored on the NEM blockchain? I am thinking that institutions actually already generate PDF files. Will they continue to store these on their own storage, or will it be possible for files to be stored on the NEM chain?
  3. What is the cost (in XEM, I guess) per notarization? Would it be cheaper if one create one’s own coin/mosaic for this maybe?
  4. Are there some API tutorials for Apostille notarization actions? I guess python might be the easiest for me.
  5. Would it be possible to integrate open Badges spec? https://openbadges.org/get-started/issuing-badges/

I am excited about what NEM holds for the future. I am sure NEM’s value will increase - I have just bought some XEM off Polo Cheesy

#2

Hi. Great to know you have an interest in NEM. To answer your questions:

  1. yes you can do that. Just write some application and call the APIs to stream the batch in.
  2. Documents cannot be stored in the blockchain. It should be stored in a separate file server with the name of the file being the part key hash of the hash in the blockchain.
  3. The cost is 1 XEM per notarisation. It would be a better design to have your own namespace and mosaic, although it is not imperative.
  4. I don’t think there is any, but if you would like to do something about it, you could look at how it was done in the nanowallet, albeit it was done in JS. Python is ok.
    5.It is possible, but I would like to know the use case. You can issue a badge from open badges and make a record of the issuance in the blockchain through the notarisation method. But I would like to know more how you want to do it.
#3

Awesome rockethead ! Thanks for the replies. OK, I think I need to install and play around with NEM and the wallet and see what is possible. Then I will be able to ask more in-depth questions.

#4

The API documentation here: http://bob.nem.ninja/docs/ does not seem to have any Apostille related documentation? Are the Apostille functions possible via API yet?

#5

sure, it would definitely be possible to make a program to notarize batches. In fact, we already allow a person to notarize up to 25 files at a time with a drag and drop of those 25 files in one drag and drop and clicking the send button. I have actually done up to 100 at a time in testing but set an artificial limit of 25 to one make sure that a person didn’t accidentally process too many files when they were just trying to to do 1 and also the more one drags and drops, the longer it takes to process so I was worried with very large batches people would think it wasn’t working as it was processing.

that artificial limit can be changed though.

Not really… Not unless they were really really small in content. In the case of a Diploma, then yes, most of the information could be stored as a message on chain. Some might not like that solution, as it would just be the condensed text of the doc and not the doc itself, but it could work.

We are charging about 6 XEM per stamp right now. If you were to make 10,000’s then a mosaic is cheaper, but… not nearly as serialized or specific with detailed information.

For Aposatille, no, but all our APIs are documented. http://bob.nem.ninja/docs/

And there is a guide how to fork the open source NanoWallet and make your very own version of Apostille; in this case you could make one just for certifications. How to build a module for Nano Wallet[quote=“grahnite, post:1, topic:3051”]
5. Would it be possible to integrate open Badges spec? https://openbadges.org/get-started/issuing-badges/
[/quote]

Yes, I think it is possible. Please contact me on Telegram at the user profile @jabo38 and reference this post so we can chat.

#6

@jabo38 - wow, thanks so much for your detailed responses, much appreciated!

I am currently playing with NEM and the nano wallet and Notarizations. I first want to get myself familiar with how everything works. I will then ask more detailed questions, I don’t want to ask too many uninformed questions without some hands-on testing.

However, did I miss in the API docs anything for the Apostille functionality? I don’t see anything specific for Apostille/notarization on the API site - or maybe I am just not seeing it? :slight_smile:

Thanks again for your help, i am really excited for what is possible with NEM/Apostille

#7

Right now all the Apostille txs and processes are done with the default NIS APIs.

We will need to better document how we do it at some point but are so busy right now.

#8

Since you asked this question about the Apostille “functionality”, really, it is a classic demonstration on the use cases of NEM which is limited by creativity more so than just a written API functionality per se to expound NEM’s strength.

In case, I am not clear with the above explanation, liken this to making a “Hello World!” screen dump using python. You could be a bit more creative and write a program to prompt the user to fill in his or her name and make an output by printing, “Hello, Alice!”

Now, NEM is python and Apostille is the result of it in this example. Apostille is a creation from the raw power of NEM, using its APIs and features found in NEM to complete the loop.

#9

Hi ! I’m bumping this thread to ask specifically about point 4:

  1. Are there some API tutorials for Apostille notarization actions? I guess python might be the easiest for me.

Going through the API guides I noticed the same thing: there are no programatic guides to the notarization functionality. Have these guides been published some place else? Or is the only way to learn about incorporating Apostille with my systems is through analyzing the NanoWallet’s source code?

Just to make sure: It is possible to integrate notarization in my own app by calling the correct endpoints, right?

Thanks!

#10

not really. the developer of LuxTag has been working hard to standardize information. He made this on Github.

https://github.com/NEM-Apostille/Apostille-library

1 Like
#11

Hello there!
I just saw this thread and as @jabo38 mentioned we have been working really hard to make Apostille easier for developers then ever.

as for the progress the development is mostly done and in halt for a while as we are writing a proper documentation.

please not that the link shared by @jabo38 is the repository and the docs there are obsolete so the only way for you to use it is to understand the code for now

EDIT: the library is in typescript and contribution is welcomed

#12

Thank you, @gimyboya! I will go through the code as soon as I have the chance. Cheers!

#13

Helpful !! Just what we were looking for.

Also, do check out lamina.sernez.io if someone wants to test out our apostille service :slight_smile: Still in beta though.

#14

Looks pretty awesome, @Nitin_Vasanth! I was actually hoping for something of the sorts. Have you considered providing a white label distribution of your protal?

Cheers,

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