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AWS and Blockchain

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Re: AWS and Blockchain

#171

Post by Traubenfuchs »

runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

You can just solve this with locking or a (self referencing) unique foreign key constraint on any mainstream SQL db though. If we include programming langues as well, the possible amount of solutions multiplies.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#173

Post by kenniskrag »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #42
smt88 wrote: post #24

I had a real experience that perfectly reflects the research presented here (safer ledgers useful, blockchains are not). I accidentally got wrapped up in a project to automate some HR functions, and the product manager demanded that it must be blockchain because blockchains are the future. It turns out that append-only databases are well-suited for HR records, and (especially when dealing with things like background…

Blockchains are great for one-thing... guarantee that data is being appended and never modified. When you want to display a record, you can aggregate the data historically and allow people to see changes and attribute them to users and time but you can always see what was originally added. However that's kinda risky for HR because anything committed to that DB will be there... forever!

Can be removed/rewinded if you are in a shorter chain of the fork while the block was mined.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#174

Post by kenniskrag »

mnd999 wrote: post #147
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchains are great for one-thing... guarantee that data is being appended and never modified. When you want to display a record, you can aggregate the data historically and allow people to see changes and attribute them to users and time but you can always see what was originally added. However that's kinda risky for HR because anything committed to that DB will be there... forever!

That’s an event sourcing architecture, and something like Kafka will do it much better than a blockchain. The forever problem can be, ironically, resolved with crypto. If you encrypt each employer record with an employee key then, if the employee data needs to be deleted you just delete the key and the data is gone.

Not really with crypto, if you use a a not forever secure crypto algo.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#175

Post by fabianfabian »

csomar wrote: post #155
dilyevsky wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Distributed DNS As opposed to normal DNS?

Edited to decentralized.

DNS is already decentralized, it's one of the most decentralized projects on the internet.

And while domains (not DNS) are less decentralized, it's all standardised and protocol based. If you want decentralized domains you need to champion for alternative DNS roots because all the technology is already there, just change the config file and get the people to do the same. Which is less effort than creating a whole new "blockchain" based system that does the same but slower.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#176

Post by fulafel »

imglorp wrote: post #35

Tim didn't mention a contemporary sibling tech at AWS which should not be thrown out with the bathwater: private (centralized), immutable, signed ledgers. Their version is called QLDB and does have concrete applications where you need an provable audit trail of a stream of transactions with search and index on top. I was on a team at a fintech closely engaged with AWS to prototype a money movement system using that a…

The analogy to git comes to mind. To match the above you'd need to be using it with signed commits. In the Git world there's the debate about rewriting vs preserving history. The similarities might be actually interesting.

In Git users there are two schools of thought, one which advocates preservign history (even if it is messy / involves fixes) because preserving a record of what actually happened is useful [1]. The other insists that a curated version of the history is more important because it is easier to understand in retrospect.

[1] There are other downsides in Git history rewriting, such as the blow up you get when attempting to merge / join branches where one has rewritten history and the other not... and the blow up you get when two people attempt to collaborate on a branch in presence of rewriting. These might have accounting analogies too

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#177

Post by ZiiS »

chaxor wrote: post #164
namdnay wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a git repo covers 99% of these pseudo-blockchain usecases

A git repo is a blockchain... Git is why people like blockchains so much - the value is clear, since it's what we interact with all day.

Git is a Merkle tree but to be a full blockchain it would need a consensus algorithm. Clones can add diffrent commits; nothing ensures they agree.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#178

Post by EFreethought »

runeks wrote: post #162
csomar wrote: post #139

It is a shame that we are ending up here with "Blockchain technology". Beyond the financial aspect (Bitcoin/Stablecoins), here are a few use cases where a Blockchain will shine : - Tracking shipments across countries. This is an append-only operation, across multiple jurisdictions/languages/infrastructures. A blockchain ledger can play the role of standardizing operations for the tracking of shipments. - Healthcare r…

No. Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different reci…

Is there a double spend problem in fiat currencies? Honestly, I do not think there is. So what is the point of cryptocurrency?

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#179

Post by Vespasian »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #171
runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

You can just solve this with locking or a (self referencing) unique foreign key constraint on any mainstream SQL db though. If we include programming langues as well, the possible amount of solutions multiplies.

As the article's author says at some point society is always built on trust in another entity.

Crypto fully shifts this from the database operator to the software developer and is willing to accept significant trade offs to do so.

Most of the unique complexity and challenges in blockchain technology originates from this.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#180

Post by philliphaydon »

legutierr wrote: post #10

> He named a region in Asia and explained that the small farmers there mark their landholdings carefully, but then the annual floods sometimes wash the markers away. Then unscrupulous larger landowners use the absence of markers to cut away at the smallholdings of the poorest. “But if the boundary markers were on the blockchain,” he said, “they wouldn’t be able to do that, would they?” The developed world is distingu…

This a solved problem that isn’t solved using blockchain.

In Thailand when you get out into the rural areas, there’s no central database you can go and argue to in regards to land ownership. You have chiefs. He mediates sales between people and ensures who owns what land. If a land dispute happens it gets resolved by the chief.

In cities it’s all controlled by local governments and paper records.

It works in the city with government and paper. It works less in rural areas where people can be bought.

Blockchain is not solving any problems here. The problem is no one managing any records.

Paper records and up to date gps records are enough.

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