Project Milestones

Crums has been quietly brewing for a few years now. Here's a brief list of milestones.

12-25-2019	merkle-tree ver 0.0.1
	Existing Merkle-tree libraries didn't match the needs of this project. This library exposes the data structure more directly (you can walk an abstract tree of n leaves containing undefined hashes, for e.g.) and packages Merkle-proofs in a way so that higher level semantics (such as crumtrails) can easily be woven into its proofs.
01-01-2020	project inception
	The initial commit of the current `crums-pub` repo was created on a private github repo on this date. There were other prototypes; this one survived.
01-18-2020	crums.io domain registered
	Ah.. the b was taken. But okay, like any crumb, it has parts missing.
02-18-2020	1st working REST service
	The data model was a bloated version of the current one. It included a cryptographic signature that could be validated against the service's public key. The signature figured in the computation of the witnessed hash. Many engineering problems related to scaling were kicked down the road.
06-29-2020	begin work on 2nd version
	Began work on scaling the service. This also provided an opportunity to revisit the data model. In particular, the signature was dropped altogether.
09-18-2020	2nd version deployed
	Old data was dropped and a more scalable version was deployed to production.
10-19-2020	skip ledgers and morsels inception
	The idea and the data structures were described in broad brushstrokes in a document.
12--2020	TimeChain, LLC
	crums.io is organized as a Colorado company.
02-13-2021	crums-pub ver 0.0.1
	First public release. Includes tools and libraries to call the REST service and store crumtrails in client-side repos.
02-16-2021	skipledger ver 0.0.1
	The data structure is fleshed out in actual code. Hey, it works!
03-28-2021	first review: console.substack.com
	Jackson Kelley was kind to include crums.io in his newsletter. It usually features projects with a bigger following, so I was quite flattered to be interviewed by him: Console > 46
04-25-2021	skipledger ver 0.0.2 released
	First release of skipledger. The .mrsl file format is prototyped, and morsel mechanics are introduced.
10-29-2021	skipledger ver 0.0.3
	skipledger adapted to relational databases. Source rows and columns modeled in a flexible way suitable both for SQL and arbitrary data. Introduced salting to better protect table cell secrets. Modeling source rows, in turn, allowed morsel files to automatically validate source rows against their hashes (previously, the hashing grammar was not nailed down, so we couldn't do this.)
12-13-2021	skipledger ver 0.0.4
	JSON representation of morsel data. Exposes type information about column values, as well as providing programmatic access from other environments than Java. Support for customized meta-info for morsels which helps with usability. Column titles/headings, for example. Added mrsl submerge command for creating redacted versions of an existing morsel (.mrsl) file.