Technology for secure partitioning and updating of a distributed digital ledger

An apparatus to support verification of a block record for a digital ledger that is distributed and partitioned, the apparatus comprising:

• at least one non-transitory machine-accessible storage medium;
• and
• instructions in the machine-accessible storage medium, wherein the instructions, when executed by a device, enable the device to operate as a first validation node by performing operations comprising:
• receiving a block record of a distributed digital ledger from a second validation node, wherein the block record comprises a payload of transactions, a header with a link to a previous block, and a digital signature for the block record;
• in response to receiving the block record, automatically obtaining a node identifier for the second validation node, based on the digital signature for the block record;
• using the node identifier for the second validation node to determine whether the second validation node belongs to a validation group that comprises the first validation node, wherein the validation group comprises a plurality of validation nodes to validate a ledger slice partitioned from the distributed digital ledger;
• using an attestation service of a remote attestation node to determine whether the node identifier for the second validation node belongs to a node with a trusted processor;
• using the digital signature for the block record to determine whether the digital signature was created with a private key that corresponds to the node identifier for the second validation node;
• and
• accepting the block record as valid only if the first validation node determines that (a) the second validation node belongs to a validation group that comprises the first validation node, (b) the node identifier for the second validation node belongs to a node with a trusted processor, and (c) the digital signature for the block record was created with a private key that corresponds to the node identifier for the second validation node.

An automated method to verify a block record for a digital ledger that is distributed and partitioned, the method comprising:

• at a first validation node, receiving a block record of a distributed digital ledger from a second validation node, wherein the block record comprises a payload of transactions, a header with a link to a previous block, and a digital signature for the block record;
• in response to receiving the block record, automatically obtaining a node identifier for the second validation node, based on the digital signature for the block record;
• using the node identifier for the second validation node to determine whether the second validation node belongs to a validation group that comprises the first validation node, wherein the validation group comprises a plurality of validation nodes to validate a ledger slice partitioned from the distributed digital ledger;
• using an attestation service of a remote attestation node to determine whether the node identifier for the second validation node belongs to a node with a trusted processor;
• and
• using the digital signature for the block record to determine whether the digital signature was created with a private key that corresponds to the node identifier for the second validation node.