Has Microsoft noticed that blockchains are just crappy databases, or did their customers?
Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
21–30 of 260 posts
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did Docusign really have a problem that couldn't be solved by any other means of publishing the hash? Ultimately the hash comes from Docusign, so I'm not sure I can think of the problem case where someone doesn't trust Docusign to self publish that hash but does trust a hash that Docusign publishes to the blockchain.
I'd argue a more popular blockchain than their in-house one would provide stronger proof. For example, a Bitcoin one: https://www.proofofexistence.com/
It looks like that is using 0.00025 BTC per transaction, which currently is $12 USD, that seems quite steep for a single document verification.
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#23What are the practical uses of private blockchains anyway?
Permissioned blockchains can be useful in trade finance and international trade. Financial transactions across borders can be delayed to allow for clearance and settlement between several institutions, which requires multiple banking systems to verify the integrity of transaction and collect a lot of paper trail. There are several competing projects solving for that problem right now.
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably, there's a third party that keeps a copy of the blockchain. If you rewrite the history of your blockchain, they'll detect it. It's fair to ask why this public record needs to be in a blockchain though. You could store the record in plain HTML on a public website and have the Web Archive create periodic immutable snapshots of it.
Exacactly - you just need something equivalent to a certificate authority which signs states of the database and guarantees the correctness of the stored data.
For more than a decade, this company has been publishing their hashes in the NYTimes classified ads: http://www.surety.com/digital-copyright-protection/prove-own...
(some cryptokiddies have tried to claim it as "the world's first blockchain" https://btcmanager.com/finding-the-oldest-blockchain-in-the-... apparently not understanding how much it undermines the case for wasteful proof-of-work blockchains if a classified ad does the same job)
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blockchains are an irrevocable proof of record (immutability with cryptographic proof) unlike traditional databases that need to be audited to capture all updates. Amazon QLDB, though private but not a Blockchain, could be used as one: For ex, creating and maintaining customer wallets (per customer coupons and discounts specific to your service). Public blockchains could be used for accounting transparency, for examp…
What is the advantage of a private blockchain over a hash tree like used in git? A git commit is also irrevocable, except if you do a git rebase. How do you prevent something similar like a git rebase in a private blockchain? A public blockchain with multiple agents that do not trust each other like in BitCoin make sense to me.
Think of an industry e.g. like banking, where the different participants know who each other are but don't fully trust each other. Presuming each participant controls one replica in the system, then using BFT algorithms you can ensure that so long as less than a third of the participants are malicious it is not possible to perform such an attack.
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#26What are the practical uses of private blockchains anyway?
Blockchains are an irrevocable proof of record (immutability with cryptographic proof) unlike traditional databases that need to be audited to capture all updates. Amazon QLDB, though private but not a Blockchain, could be used as one: For ex, creating and maintaining customer wallets (per customer coupons and discounts specific to your service). Public blockchains could be used for accounting transparency, for examp…
>an irrevocable proof of record (immutability with cryptographic proof)
Which ignores and can even make worse the problem of bad data at the entry point. This is what effectively killed the entire set of use cases related to supply chain provenance.
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
But how can a blockchain be actually and meaningfully "public" without proof of work and distributed mining establishing majority based consensus on what _is_. If you just store the equivalent of a blockchain somewhere then I don't see what benefit it provides over a database controlled by a consortium. It's all bullshit.
Presumably, there's a third party that keeps a copy of the blockchain. If you rewrite the history of your blockchain, they'll detect it. It's fair to ask why this public record needs to be in a blockchain though. You could store the record in plain HTML on a public website and have the Web Archive create periodic immutable snapshots of it.
A distributed ledger eliminates the risk that the third party hosting the record can be hacked or that the operator fraudulently lies in the record.
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blockchains are an irrevocable proof of record (immutability with cryptographic proof) unlike traditional databases that need to be audited to capture all updates. Amazon QLDB, though private but not a Blockchain, could be used as one: For ex, creating and maintaining customer wallets (per customer coupons and discounts specific to your service). Public blockchains could be used for accounting transparency, for examp…
But how can a blockchain be actually and meaningfully "public" without proof of work and distributed mining establishing majority based consensus on what _is_. If you just store the equivalent of a blockchain somewhere then I don't see what benefit it provides over a database controlled by a consortium. It's all bullshit.
A blockchain does not require anything beyond ensuring the prior entries checksums make sense.
Making past entries immutable is the purpose.
Proof of work and distributed mining don’t need a blockchain.
Have you heard of hashcash? It is proof-of-work concept to prevent email spam.
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blockchains are an irrevocable proof of record (immutability with cryptographic proof) unlike traditional databases that need to be audited to capture all updates. Amazon QLDB, though private but not a Blockchain, could be used as one: For ex, creating and maintaining customer wallets (per customer coupons and discounts specific to your service). Public blockchains could be used for accounting transparency, for examp…
But how can a blockchain be actually and meaningfully "public" without proof of work and distributed mining establishing majority based consensus on what _is_. If you just store the equivalent of a blockchain somewhere then I don't see what benefit it provides over a database controlled by a consortium. It's all bullshit.
See my answer above - in cases where the participants are all known you can use BFT algorithms to prevent attacks so long as less than a third of the replicas are malicious.
Re: Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably, there's a third party that keeps a copy of the blockchain. If you rewrite the history of your blockchain, they'll detect it. It's fair to ask why this public record needs to be in a blockchain though. You could store the record in plain HTML on a public website and have the Web Archive create periodic immutable snapshots of it.
Exacactly - you just need something equivalent to a certificate authority which signs states of the database and guarantees the correctness of the stored data.
That requires trusting one authority. You can do better - there are distributed algorithms that can prevent malicious behaviour from compromising the system so long as less than a third of the participants are malicious.