Judicial Applications in the Digital Economy: The Dilemma and Countermeasures for Determining the Authenticity of Blockchain Evidence

Judicial Applications in the Digital Economy: The Dilemma and Countermeasures for Determining the Authenticity of Blockchain EvidenceThe rapid development of the digital economy has given rise to a flourishing digital legal system. Blockchain technology, as an important part of the digital economy, plays an increasingly important role in evidence storage, identification, and authentication, thanks to its technological advantages, such as decentralization, information sharing, trustlessness, efficient collaboration, and immutability

Judicial Applications in the Digital Economy: The Dilemma and Countermeasures for Determining the Authenticity of Blockchain Evidence

The rapid development of the digital economy has given rise to a flourishing digital legal system. Blockchain technology, as an important part of the digital economy, plays an increasingly important role in evidence storage, identification, and authentication, thanks to its technological advantages, such as decentralization, information sharing, trustlessness, efficient collaboration, and immutability. However, blockchain evidence also faces various dilemmas and challenges in terms of its authenticity in judicial applications. This paper, from the perspective of judicial applications in the digital economy, analyzes existing problems and proposes various countermeasures to improve the authenticity of blockchain evidence, aiming to provide specific guidance for research on the authenticity of blockchain evidence, promote the high-quality development of digital legal systems, and continuously advance the modernization of the judicial system and trial capabilities.

I. Introduction

In today's world of continuously evolving digital legal systems, the data authenticity, reliability, transparency, and immutability of blockchain evidence, combined with emerging blockchain technology, receive increasing attention. Traditional methods of evidence preservation are often vulnerable to tampering, loss, or falsification. In recent years, with the rise of blockchain technology, a new way of evidence preservation blockchain evidence has garnered wider attention.

In recent years, with the rapid development of internet technology, the overall economic form of society has undergone a dramatic transformation. To better adapt to this digitized economic model, the digital legal system has emerged and entered a period of rapid development. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party and government have attached great importance to the development of the digital economy and have proposed the national development strategy of "Digital China." To better promote the implementation of the Party and government's strategic deployments regarding building a strong cyberspace, Digital China, and promoting the rule of law in all respects, judicial organs, led by the courts and procuratorates, have accelerated the construction of intelligent and information-based legal systems in judicial practice, actively exploring the application of internet technology in legal work, and promoting the construction and development of a digital legal system.

Under this backdrop of a digital legal system, online litigation has gradually emerged, and electronic evidence has taken on an increasingly important role in civil litigation. However, on the foundation of massive data on platforms, traditional electronic data can no longer meet the requirements for accuracy and precision of key electronic data in internet-related cases and economic-related cases. The shortcomings of easy tampering and change also pose greater challenges to the judicial process for such cases.

Therefore, utilizing the technological advantages of blockchain decentralization, tamper-resistance, trustlessness, full-process hashing, and ease of leaving traces that align with the judicial needs of electronic evidence preservation and authentication, blockchain evidence has emerged. Using blockchain technology to store evidence can solve the applicability problems of electronic evidence. It not only compensates for the shortcomings of traditional electronic evidence in terms of authenticity but is also an important means of promoting digital industrialization, with blockchain technology at its core, and enhancing the government's digital governance capabilities.

II. Exploring: What Does Authentication of Blockchain Evidence Mean?

The process of blockchain data preservation involves the following steps:

1. Data Hashing: The data to be preserved is hashed by a hash algorithm to generate a unique hash value. This hash value represents the content of the original data.

2. Preservation Transaction: The data's hash value and relevant metadata (such as timestamp, preserver, etc.) are packaged into a transaction and sent to the blockchain network. This is also known as a preservation transaction.

3. Blockchain Verification: Once the preservation transaction is included in a block and confirmed by other participants, the data preservation is recognized as valid. Due to the decentralized nature and immutability of the blockchain, it effectively prevents the data from being tampered with or forged, enhancing the reliability of data preservation.

4. Data Retrieval: Through the preservation and transaction process on the blockchain, relevant data can be quickly retrieved. The traceability of blockchain preserved data allows for better data traceability and verification.

III. Optimizing Judicial Applications for Determining the Authenticity of Blockchain Evidence

Discussions about the authenticity and reliability of blockchain evidence focus on the pre-chain and post-chain processes. This involves analyzing the authenticity of evidence before being uploaded to the chain, as well as the authenticity and reliability of evidence after being uploaded to the chain.

Before being uploaded to the chain, the "formal authenticity review" involves different legal system structures regarding the classification of evidence rules such as "formal authenticity" and "substantial authenticity." Substantial authenticity refers to the fact that the evidence must reflect actual circumstances and content and must be consistent with objective facts in the case and not be fabricated or altered. Formal authenticity, also known as carrier authenticity by relevant scholars, refers to the fact that the evidence must physically exist and not be fabricated.

Considering the consistency between the pre-trial and trial procedures in civil litigation and the virtual nature of the internet space, the logical structure of "formal authenticity review" should be used to promote the construction of "substantial authenticity review" evidence rules, while emphasizing the importance of evidence form authenticity review based on valuing the virtual form of blockchain evidence.

IV. Countermeasures to Enhance the Authenticity of Blockchain Evidence

To address the dilemmas and challenges faced in determining the authenticity of blockchain evidence, this paper proposes the following countermeasures:

1. Improve the Qualification Review Standards for Blockchain Preservation Platforms

• Establish Basic Entry Thresholds: Improving qualification requirements and establishing basic entry thresholds are essential for regulating the operation of blockchain preservation platforms, promoting blockchain preservation technology, and enhancing the credibility of blockchain electronic data. Establishing qualification requirements does not constitute an excessive restriction on the development of blockchain technology and does not violate the fundamental characteristics of decentralization. On the contrary, only by ensuring that the platform's hardware and technical capabilities are up to par can the platform's blockchain system operate properly, independently, and stably, possessing the capabilities of decentralization and tamper-resistance.

• Introduce National Standards: It is recommended that the courts, procuratorates, and Cyberspace Administration of China, together with the Standardization Administration of China, adopt the GB/T25000-2016 "Systems and Software Engineering Systems and Software Quality Requirements and Evaluation" series of national standards, particularly GB/T22240-2020 "Information Security Technology Network Security Grade Protection Rating Guide," GB/T22239-2019 "Information Security Technology Network Security Grade Protection Basic Requirements," GB/T366627-2018 "Information Security Technology Network Security Grade Protection Testing and Evaluation Technical Guide," and GB/T25000.51-2016, and, in conjunction with the relevant qualification requirements for blockchain specified by the Internet Society of China, propose requirements for the corresponding hardware and technical conditions of third-party blockchain preservation platforms.

• Improve Platform Technical Capability Assessment: First, the platform should be equipped with comprehensive supporting facilities to support system operation. Second, it should have specific user identification capabilities, requiring users to undergo real-name authentication during registration, and the platform's real-name authentication system should be connected to the Ministry of Public Security's official resident identity authentication system for safe and reliable authentication. This ensures not only accurate user identification but also contributes to official information recognition. Third, the network and system environment cleanliness should be continuously improved. The platform should prevent local abnormal operation behaviors from affecting system cleanliness and ensure that users do not need to download any unnecessary software or plug-ins when using the blockchain preservation platform. All operations should be performed on the system-assigned cloud host. Additionally, the platform should provide "Blockchain Electronic Evidence Cleanliness Authentication" certificates from the Judicial Authentication Institute of the National Information Security Development Research Center to guarantee the cleanliness of the blockchain preservation platform's network and system. Fourth, the platform's recording time should comply with standards. While standardizing the timestamps applied to its blockchain preservation, it should also adopt the standard time source provided by the National Time Service Center. Time information should