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Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

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Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#151

Post by aeijdenberg »

adeptus wrote: post #124
ajkjk wrote: post #32

I'm pretty sure this is what most people actually want when they say they want a blockchain, they just don't know it yet. It's got all the useful database features with none of the "well uh let's distribute it over people's computers and let people mine coins to support it" complexity, which adds nothing to 99% of usecases besides silly ICO potential.

Actually, I'm pretty sure most people don't have a clue when it comes to blockchain. Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. That's complete nonsense. Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Amazon puts out some spectacular products and innovation, but this one is laugh out loud material.

You can certainly claim something is centralized and tamper-evident. ie demonstrate proof that something has not been mutated over time.

See RFC6962 Certificate Transparency logs and their consistency proofs for a widely used example.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#152

Post by nixpulvis »

ineedasername wrote: post #149

Why are they using the word "quantum" here? With the advent of actual quantum computing this will just become increasingly confusing.

Came here to make the same complaint. Quantum science / computing is already confusing enough without things arbitrarily named "Quantum X". I wouldn't really be complaining if I didn't think Quantum Databases will probably be (are?) a thing.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#154

Post by Scarbutt »

harryh wrote: post #131
Scarbutt wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just as a serverless networked applications are not really serverless.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#155

Post by pmart123 »

sixdimensional wrote: post #150

This reminds me of temporal database [1] concepts. I've been thinking that besides the hashing aspect of it, otherwise, it's actually basically the same as a temporal database, isn't it? I do like that they referred to it as a database rather than blockchain, as it more accurately captures the fact that it is a data store and I always felt like blockchain was more a reference to the way that the data is cryptographic…

I'm no expert, but there definitely are similarities. You could design a temporal table where a change in a customer's email always generates a new row versus an update, or you could just be capturing a snapshot of time-series data at a point in time. A ledger database is much more like double-entry bookkeeping, or git, where you are capturing each change.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#156

Post by adeptus »

davepeck wrote: post #148
adeptus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'm pretty sure most people don't have a clue when it comes to blockchain. Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. That's complete nonsense. Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Amazon puts out some spectacular products and innovation, but this one is laugh out loud material.

> Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon. > Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Maybe none? I might be willing to bet that 99% of blockchains in use today could in fact just use AQLD or similar. And this is what it comes down to: most of us live in a world wher…

>Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon.

No it can't. The second it is hacked and somebody alters the ledger, it is no longer immutable. Centralized security models eventually all get hacked. What you could however say is that the application you need to have immutable isn't super mission critical, and thus you can afford a very low probability - but not 0% of getting hacked.

>And this is what it comes down to: most of us live in a world where trust can, and does, have to root out somewhere. So much of our society is built around this.

And this is where you might be a bit out of touch. From China hacking US IP, from Banks world wide manipulating markets, gold, Libor, frequent global election fraud, government mis-spending of funds, corporate & government accounting fraud, Fukushima lies, Fakenews etc. The trust people have in institutions and governments world wide is in an accelerated decline. We are constantly asked to trust, and we are constantly let down. Properly decentralized blockchains are 'Trust machines'. They aren't alone going to solve all the issues I mentioned, but they do have the potential to increase trust in many processes related to these various issues. The key requirement is decentralization though. A blockchain managed by a single entity is nothing more than a dumbed down over-marketed database with limited use cases.

Google: Decline in trust: https://www.google.com/search?ei=WEv_W6DfIe2x0PEPxe6AmA4&q=D...

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#157

Post by cthalupa »

adeptus wrote: post #156
davepeck wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon. > Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Maybe none? I might be willing to bet that 99% of blockchains in use today could in fact just use AQLD or similar. And this is what it comes down to: most of us live in a world wher…

>Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon. No it can't. The second it is hacked and somebody alters the ledger, it is no longer immutable. Centralized security models eventually all get hacked. What you could however say is that the application you need to have immutable isn't super mission critical, and thus you can afford a very low probability - but not 0% of getting hacked.…

>Centralized security models eventually all get hacked.

This is an incredibly strong assertion and not one that you have proven. Nor do I believe it is something that you, or anyone, could prove.

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#158

Post by iblaine »

dogma1138 wrote: post #137
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…

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 wor…

> Assuming no bad actors

Blockchain gives you security against bad actors. Here's a similar use case for a marijuana supply chain: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/leveraging-blockchains-to-tra...

Re: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

#160

Post by root_axis »

iblaine wrote: post #158
dogma1138 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wor…

> Assuming no bad actors Blockchain gives you security against bad actors. Here's a similar use case for a marijuana supply chain: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/leveraging-blockchains-to-tra...

Unsurprisingly, the article provides zero details as to how a blockchain actually solves any problems here. Frankly, it's very obviously useless for all "supply chain" related ideas. If you're going to do something illegal why would you record it in a blockchain?
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