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Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

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Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#281

Post by noxer »

tupputuppu wrote: post #278
noxer wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ignore the fact that people at GitHub can delete whatever they want. The difference is that they probably wont tamper with someones data but they can. On a distributed ledger however "they" are many different humans who don't know each other and have only one common interest and that is that no one tampers with the data. And even if a majority would collude and tamper it would be impossible to hide that from t…

Well, considering the business is transporting sports cars, what's the threat model here? Someone wants to take the car on a 15min joyride and will bribe a Github employee to be able to do that? And you think the actual implementation of the blockchain will be more secure and tamper pro of?

I didn't meant to say that this is a legit reason to use a DL instead of Github/a database. I just wanted to point out the difference. It may or may not matter in this case because the thread is very limited. There are still very valid reasons to use a DL for example the XRPL had a uptime of 100% in the last year. GitHub certainly does not have that. Also using a public DL means zero maintenance. Again I use the XRPL as example it runs stable and public since over 8 years. To use it you need nothing but an address of a node or better a few for backup because a single nodes obviously can have downtime. No server, no domain register, no cloud computing provider, no backup plans, nothing. The only thing you pay is the Tx "fee" which is only there to prevent spam Tx. Its like 0.00001 XRP so thousands of transactions will cost you cents at most.

>And you think the actual implementation of the blockchain will be more secure and tamper pro of?

Yes, absolutely. Again XRPL as example because I know it best. There has never been a single byte tampered with in the last 8 years and its several TB of Tx data by now.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#282

Post by Canada »

tupputuppu wrote: post #279
jkepler wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is the first and obvious use case when you have a decentralized trust machine. But since money is only our shared language for communicating value, censorship resistant publishing won't be far behind.

It's 12 years since the advent of blockchain yet there isn't a single good example of such censorship resistant publish ng. What gives? I'd imagine you must be wrong.

Censorship resistant publishing can be bought for a price like any other service. Blockchains need only provide a medium for buying and selling of that, not actually publish the data itself. Case in point: Storage coins are designed to reward with money those who make available data they were given for the duration of time they agreed to make it available for, or conversely punishing them with losses if they renege on that agreement.

Some things money can't buy, but for everything else a blockchain can organize payment for it.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#283

Post by oneplane »

goatinaboat wrote: post #82
oneplane wrote: post #38

Distributed non-repudiation; useful for inter-org or inter-political timestamping/handshaking and maybe even intention/confirmation registration. In can do some of the things you'd use a notary for.

In can do some of the things you'd use a notary for. Or, just use an entirely conventional database, operated by the notary.

That doesn't solve the distribution problem; if you can use centralised trust you'd of course have no need to distribution, but then this isn't the solution to use.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#284

Post by GartzenDeHaes »

quesera wrote: post #166
GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #153

The biggest use would be for Automated Clearing House (ACH) funds transfers. Right now, banks receive and send money by sending flat files through a distributed processing system with no database transactions, verification, or transfer history. Some big bank robberies were committed a few years ago by compromising the banking systems that create and process these files. Once the file is sent to the ACH network, rever…

Wouldn't it be simpler for the ACH file creator to cryptographically sign the contents of the file? Attaching a signature to the end of the file (a la PGP) after the padding rows seems workable.

The goal of using block chain here would be to reverse individual transactions (a row in the file) after then money has moved through several files/institutions.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#285

Post by bb88 »

hirsin wrote: post #140
bb88 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The picture of the car is not protected by hard crypto until it's inserted into the blockchain. Until it is inserted the trust chain breaks at the questions of: When was it taken? Who was taking the picture? What is the picture of? The car to be protected? Or someone else's car. Blockchain works for currencies, since currencies are just numbers in a ledger. And numbers can be easily secured with strong crypto.

"Secured by hard crypto" is item fifteen on someone's priority list after usability, cost, reliability, speed and the font used on the marketing page. Note that none of the questions you raise are answered by protecting a jpeg with hard crypto... (If that was the point, my apologies for re-explaining it).

It was, but thanks for clarifying. :)

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#286

Post by sthnblllII »

mpfundstein wrote: post #270
sthnblllII wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Thats why courts need to be able to intervene, which they cant do in the case of a truly decentralized blockchain. Which is why a blockchain is a poor fit for recording the ownership of non-digital assets.

what about corrupt courts? or at least biased courts?

Thats a problem too, but not one that will be solved by blockchains.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#287

Post by aabbcc1241 »

sebmellen wrote: post #265
SahAssar wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? The suggestion was that the transporter simply send an email with the same data. The receiving party would get the email, and when an email is sent the sending party has no access to change it.

Yes, in that case the receiver and all other custodians in the party would need shared access to the same Gmail account, or many emails would be sent to the ever expanding list of custodians, leaving a nightmare of 1000+ email long chains of unsearchable information. It's not a feasible solution.

I suppose email is searchable, especially if it includes an order ID.

I'm not discouraging you. Just to say your blockchain backed solution is a fair solution but it's not the only solution.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#288

Post by _b8r0 »

cheeze wrote: post #46
_b8r0 wrote: post #2

Usually it's when you want decentralized validation of time-series data. E.g. The egg industry adopts a solution whereby the chicken are tracked on a blockchain so people know which chickens are kept outdoors and which are indoors. The eggs are then tracked and checked in at each quality gate and the consumer then gets a QR code for an app that tells them where the egg came from and where it was checked for tampering…

This is a poor example IMO. You're talking about something that can easily be handled by a database... you don't have trust issues or a byzantine generals problem to solve when it comes to egg tracking. Blockchain does nothing to ensure that the data is truthful.

Yes it's absolutely a poor example, that's why I wrote this:

> A blockchain isn't the only solution available, and it doesn't require a public blockchain.

You are right that Blockchain does nothing to ensure that the data is truthful. Neither does a centralized database.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#289

Post by bccdee »

sebmellen wrote: post #209
doonesbury wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the question: is anything really be solved here? No, not really. A db table of jpegs taken at different points in the hand off is essentially fine too. Carfax seems to so fine without blockchain. And really the bottom line is the end recipient: what recourse is there if the car shows up with too many miles?

The recourse is that the transporter doesn't get paid. Just a small adjustment to incentives massively changes the occurrence of damage to the car or anything similar. If you're arguing to put everything in a spreadsheet, or have us control the database and do without timestamping, I don't know what to say to you. Blockchain works here. Our business model isn't changing because you're saying we don't need it. Build a…

> Build a system like this yourself and we'll talk about it then.

Done. It's an email server. The person shipping the car takes a photograph of the odometer, emails it to the recipient, and then the recipient compares the photograph of the odometer with the car odometer. Any tampering which could be performed on the photo or its timestamp could be done equally to whatever log is entered into the blockchain, and the recipient knows that the photo must have been taken before the date when they received the email.

And if you use gmail, it's free.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#290

Post by bccdee »

sebmellen wrote: post #183
smt88 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where the timestamping party cannot be trusted to act honestly because of conflicting interests But in this case, isn't whoever controls your code the "timestamping party"? Looking at two examples: A: With blockchain The timestamp that the photo was taken is immutably, publicly logged. B: Without blockchain The timestamp the photo was taken is logged by you, the software provider. What is a scenario where (B) is le…

To address your concerns: > isn't whoever controls your code the "timestamping party"? No (and sort of yes). The result of the timestamp is instantly verifiable against the timestamped data, meaning the results of the timestamp can be viewed on a public blockchain explorer or using an API that interfaces with the blockchain, without trusting our code. If another party doesn't trust our frontend code, they can build t…

What if I write a browser extension that lets me upload a file from my computer with an arbitrary timestamp when I'm prompted to take a photograph? That seems like the obvious attack.
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