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Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

aws.amazon.com

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Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#131

Post by harryh »

Scarbutt wrote: post #115
znpy wrote: post #70

Uhm... If some of my data is stored in one instance of that database and I then ask the owning company to delete such data in accordance to , say, GDPR... What happens ?

You delete it. You think there won't be a "I'm pretty sure I want to delete this?" option? you probably have to explicitly go out of your way to do it since the point is not to delete data. There's probably also an option for not keeping history for data that it doesn't make sense to have history for.

If you can delete things then it's not an immutable database.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#132

Post by DanielBMarkham »

EGreg wrote: post #126
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a centralized source? So sure. Voting. Wouldn't it be great to have an auditable trail? But why would you then go and put all of that in one spot? Wouldn't a better approach be reconfiguring the tech to work in a faster fashion?

I also don’t get it. Auditable trail? Use a Merkle DAG. Or something like this Permissionless Timestamping Network: https://intercoin.pdf/whitepaper.pdf I mean how hard is it? What are the real challenges?

Glad it's not just me.

Elsewhere they say something like "But it works like a database! You do queries and everything!"

Ok. So sign a database.

It's like they're expecting developers to not know a damned thing about blockchain, but know they want a secure database and something with cool buzzwords in the name and AWS has one for them as long as they have a credit card.

AWS needs to provide clear and compelling places where AWS is not the answer to everything. I am not hearing that, and it indicates to me a lack of appropriate executive direction. Yeah, sure, build a cult. But build a cult with guardrails.

I'm not sure that this is the "Make stuff people want" that I would be comfortable pumping to others. I don't know. I must be missing it.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#133

Post by petra »

qyv wrote: post #108
Alex3917 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A trusted third party What does an industry with thousands of different major players have to gain by coming together to give a single company a monopoly over their entire industry? And in fact, one of the biggest strengths of blockchain is that it provides a viable alternative to monopolies for various industries.

Using a private blockchain has the same issue of trusting a third party. As soon as someone has control of who can write to the ledger, you need to trust them, period.

Well AWS is already the trusted third party for so much stuff. What's another db ?

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#134

Post by baxtr »

iblaine wrote: post #128
sbuttgereit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. When I see something like this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/walmart-is-betting-on-the-... I just don't get it. I understand the motivation behind them wanting this sort of broad supply-chain tracking, but I don't see what "blockchain" actually solves for them that can't be more readily/efficiently solved in other ways. A trusted third party, with an immutable transaction ledger, and a simple to develop to…

The idea is immutable micro-transactions to track operations in a complex inventory system. Consider a situation where a customer finds a nail in their banana. This 'blockchain' db could be used to recognize where the banana was sold, what truck delivered it, where that specific banana and was sourced. It can be an interesting solution or vaporware depending on your level of interest. I personally think micro-transac…

What’s the advantage over a centralized system?

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#135

Post by antaviana »

baxtr wrote: post #134
iblaine wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is immutable micro-transactions to track operations in a complex inventory system. Consider a situation where a customer finds a nail in their banana. This 'blockchain' db could be used to recognize where the banana was sold, what truck delivered it, where that specific banana and was sourced. It can be an interesting solution or vaporware depending on your level of interest. I personally think micro-transac…

What’s the advantage over a centralized system?

Inmutability of the transaction history.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#136

Post by dogma1138 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #99
sbuttgereit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. When I see something like this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/walmart-is-betting-on-the-... I just don't get it. I understand the motivation behind them wanting this sort of broad supply-chain tracking, but I don't see what "blockchain" actually solves for them that can't be more readily/efficiently solved in other ways. A trusted third party, with an immutable transaction ledger, and a simple to develop to…

> A trusted third party What does an industry with thousands of different major players have to gain by coming together to give a single company a monopoly over their entire industry? And in fact, one of the biggest strengths of blockchain is that it provides a viable alternative to monopolies for various industries.

Ask the financial industry e.g. Swift.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#137

Post by dogma1138 »

iblaine wrote: post #128
sbuttgereit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. When I see something like this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/walmart-is-betting-on-the-... I just don't get it. I understand the motivation behind them wanting this sort of broad supply-chain tracking, but I don't see what "blockchain" actually solves for them that can't be more readily/efficiently solved in other ways. A trusted third party, with an immutable transaction ledger, and a simple to develop to…

The idea is immutable micro-transactions to track operations in a complex inventory system. Consider a situation where a customer finds a nail in their banana. This 'blockchain' db could be used to recognize where the banana was sold, what truck delivered it, where that specific banana and was sourced. It can be an interesting solution or vaporware depending on your level of interest. I personally think micro-transac…

Assuming no bad actors what’s the difference between this and a single DB that simply tracks the banana?

A blockchain won’t solve the problem of creating a unique identifier for each banana and ensuring it was correctly scanned.

Also this isn’t a good example fundamentally because the banana is not immutable as in anyone can swap the barcode from one banana with another or it can fall off.

Blockchains really only work when everything is immutable.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#138

Post by dogma1138 »

antaviana wrote: post #135
baxtr wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the advantage over a centralized system?

Inmutability of the transaction history.

You don’t need a blockchain for that also if the “transcation data” itself is not immutable such as in the case of a banana so how would this work exactly?

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#139

Post by sbuttgereit »

baxtr wrote: post #134
iblaine wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is immutable micro-transactions to track operations in a complex inventory system. Consider a situation where a customer finds a nail in their banana. This 'blockchain' db could be used to recognize where the banana was sold, what truck delivered it, where that specific banana and was sourced. It can be an interesting solution or vaporware depending on your level of interest. I personally think micro-transac…

What’s the advantage over a centralized system?

You have many vendors that handle the product. The farm, multiple distributors, and transportation companies.

Having a consolidated/consistent view of transactions from the full supply chain relative to tangible product could be genuinely helpful for reducing errors that could be consequential from a food safety perspective. It's unlikely to stop cheating since many of these food vendors will almost certain being humans entering transactions at keyboards (and then when you can get compliance with that transaction entry) and at those points all you can do is make cheating harder.

The challenge is how to get that consolidated/consistent view of the world across disparate parties, some of which don't know all of the other parties involved, in a secure enough manner, and in a way that the supply chain participants will be willing to take part in.

Larger players, like Walmart, can set the stage for some of that cooperation to happen just because of their relevance to the market. The government agencies that buy food also want that and also are pushing for it (that's where my clients are getting some pushes in that direction). None of that means the end goal will be achieved for any number of reasons, including many that are not technical in nature... "blockchain" just complicates those odds.

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