1 files changed, 153 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/proposals/0000-hyperdb-timestamps.md b/proposals/0000-hyperdb-timestamps.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a80e32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/proposals/0000-hyperdb-timestamps.md
@@ -0,0 +1,153 @@
+
+Title: **DEP-0000: Hyperdb Timestamps**
+
+Short Name: `0000-hyperdb-timestamps`
+
+Type: Standard
+
+Status: Undefined (as of YYYY-MM-DD)
+
+Github PR: (add HTTPS link here after PR is opened)
+
+Authors: [Bryan Newbold](https://github.com/bnewbold)
+
+
+# Summary
+[summary]: #summary
+
+An optional timestamp field is added to hyperdb "entry" metadata for writers to
+self-report the date and time of modifications to the database.
+
+
+# Motivation
+[motivation]: #motivation
+
+The timestamp of changes to Dat archives is not currently captured at any layer
+of the technical stack (hyperdrive, hyperdb, or hypercore). Hyperdrive records
+the filesystem creation and modification timestamps of individual files, but
+these [POSIX][posix]-style fields store pre-existing filesystem-level metadata,
+not hyperdrive-level event metadata, and do not track changes like deletion.
+
+By adding an optional field to hyperdb entries, clients and applications will
+be able to track the (self-reported) date and time of changes, which are
+valuable to human users inspecting the history of a dat archive. Uses of this
+metadata might include surfacing recent events to users, calculating activity
+metrics over large numbers of archives, and comparing "freshness" between
+multiple archives with similar or overlapping content.
+
+This metadata is *not* intended to be trusted for any security or
+protocol-layer concerns.
+
+[POSIX]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX
+
+
+# Usage Documentation
+[usage-documentation]: #usage-documentation
+
+Implementation libraries expose timestamp information at higher protocol
+levels. The Hyperdb library also exposes a method to fetch the timestamp for a
+given revision/sequence of the log, and options to control the inclusion of
+timestamps when creating databases or making modifications.
+
+It is important to note that timestamps are self-generated and reported by the
+writer's computer, which may be misconfigured or have significant local clock
+skew. This means that timestamps can end up inaccurate, out of order, or
+entirely bogus (eg, in the case of a device with no datetime configured at all,
+which might default to the year 1970).
+
+
+# Reference Documentation
+[reference-documentation]: #reference-documentation
+
+The timestamp would be an additional `optional` field to the `Entry` and
+`InflatedEntry` protobuf fields in the hyperdb protocol, with type `uint64`.
+The number represents the number of milliseconds since the UNIX epoch, in the
+UTC timezone. The timestamp would be calculated at the time the protobuf
+message is created for appending to the hypercore log.
+
+
+# Drawbacks
+[drawbacks]: #drawbacks
+
+The marginal storage and bandwidth overhead to implement timestamps would be
+very small for Dat and hyperdrive applications, but could be non-trivial for
+some hyperdb key/value store applications with very small values. Even in this
+case, the overhead would be on the order of 5 bytes per key.
+
+See [Privacy and Security Concerns][privacy].
+
+
+# Privacy and Security Concerns
+[privacy]: #privacy
+
+Timestamps can be used as a side-band to deanonymize users, by leaking
+information about their local timezone and computer usage habits.
+High-resolution timestamps can be correlated with network traffic or real-life
+events to identify nodes.
+
+Users and applications could "fuzz" (add random error to), truncate, or
+entirely disable timestamping to mitigate these issues, but these would depend
+on user and developer awareness of the issue.
+
+
+# Rationale and alternatives
+[alternatives]: #alternatives
+
+The usefulness of "self-reported" (as opposed to network-verified) timestamps
+is demonstrated by the git version control software.
+
+The timestamp could have additional resolution (eg, nanoseconds) at the cost of
+additional storage. Seconds seems like a good design trade-off between
+efficiency and value to human users. Timestamps could also be stored in
+floating point, but this removes the potential efficiency of `varint` encoding.
+
+The timestamp field is added at the hyperdb layer instead of hyperdrive (in the
+`Stat` metadata) because in the hyperdb version of hyperdrive, a deletion is
+represented as a non-existant `value` (aka, no  `Stat` at all). If timestamps
+aren't stored at the hyperdb layer, then deletions can't be timestamped.
+
+The consistent use of UTC time requires implementations to convert to local
+time, but avoids the complexities of local timezone representations. The
+behavior around leap seconds is intentionally not specified here, to allow use
+of "clock smearing" or operating system default transitions to TAI or other
+leap-second-free time standards.
+
+
+# Unresolved questions
+[unresolved]: #unresolved-questions
+
+Should this instead live at the hypercore layer? Protocol designers have so far
+been hesitant to add additional features or complexity to that protocol layer.
+
+Should a new "wrapper" message type be added to hyperdrive to allow
+timestamping of deletions as well as insertions. This could look something
+like:
+
+```protobuf
+message DriveEvent {
+    message Stat {
+        required uint32 mode = 1;
+        optional uint32 uid = 2;
+        optional uint32 gid = 3;
+        optional uint64 size = 4;
+        optional uint64 blocks = 5;
+        optional uint64 offset = 6;
+        optional uint64 byteOffset = 7;
+        optional uint64 mtime = 8;
+        optional uint64 ctime = 9;
+    }
+
+    optional Stat stat = 1;
+    optional uint63 timestamp = 2;
+}
+```
+
+Is there a better practice today (in 2018) for dealing with leap seconds in
+specifications?
+
+
+# Changelog
+[changelog]: #changelog
+
+- 2018-03-17: First submitted for comment.
+