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Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

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Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#81

Post by invalidusernam3 »

code4tee wrote: post #18

IBM is quietly brushing its Watson mess under the carpet and now they’re trying to focus on blockchain. However this is just as substanceless and full of marketing fluff as Watson was. There’s nothing being done here that couldn’t or shouldn’t just be handled with a traditional database. Having IBM “run it” also sort of defeats the whole decentralized aspect of blockchain technologies. You don’t need “blockchain” to…

Decentralized doesn't mean nobody is in control (Bitcoin devs are in control of Bitcoin), it means there isn't a central place where data is stored.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#82

Post by theamk »

I think it is important to remember this is not any blockchain, it is IBM Blockchain For Business. I found a great overview page:

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2017/05/the-difference-...

> Consensus in a blockchain for business is not achieved through mining but through a process called “selective endorsement.” It is about being able to control exactly who verifies transactions, much in the same way that business happens today. [...] This is different from Bitcoin, where the whole network has to work to verify transactions.

> Bitcoin thrives due to anonymity. [...] On the other hand, businesses have KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering) compliance requirements that require them to know exactly who they are dealing with. Participants in business networks require the polar opposite of anonymity: privacy.

So I actually think this is not such a bad idea. I mean, it allows IBM to take all the money from people who want to buy blockchain, but does not produce negative effects, like energy waste. Sure, I would call it "distributed event sourcing database", but if it has to be renamed for marketing reasons, this is OK too.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#83

Post by peterwwillis »

Alternate solution: do not announce small foodbourne illness outbreaks.

In the article's example, 250 people got sick from a lettuce outbreak, and everyone stopped buying lettuce, hitting the whole industry. But 5 million people get sick from Norovirus alone in the US every year.

Leafy vegetables like lettuce are the most common source of food illness. Telling people about a minor outbreak is just letting them freak out for no good reason. We should be educating people better about foodbourne illness so they can respond without freaking out, and so they don't get sick so damn much. And the media should stop freaking people out.

250 people out of 350 million getting sick, and not even dying? It's a minor risk! 35,000 die in traffic every year, and these people are freaked out by some lettuce. Take a fuckin chance, would ya please? https://youtu.be/X29lF43mUlo

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#84

Post by bayesian_horse »

ceejayoz wrote: post #69
bayesian_horse wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, a blockchain is a decentralized database which does not require the individual instances to have perfect connectivity and perfect trust all the time. I can see why that would be something worth doing in a food chain. To trace, for example, a particular load of soy beans to a customer eating a steak, there are a couple of completely autonomous companies/sole proprietors involved. From the original…

If those dozen or two separate legal entities can all hop on a blockchain, they can likely make a POST request to Walmart's API too, right?

Putting data into a blockchain is something different from making a TCP/IP connection to the internet.

In a blockchain system, a particular piece of information has to eventually reach all interested parties, of course. But it can do so through a chain of potentially untrusted intermediaries, which also don't have to be connected through an internet connection. For example a truck servicing multiple farms or multiple stations on one farm, could collect new information packets, and pass on those he already has. Variations of the "Sneaker Net" pattern if you will.

Food chain information is not very time-sensitive. A POST request is, however, very much time sensitive.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#85

Post by bayesian_horse »

stinky613 wrote: post #73
bayesian_horse wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, a blockchain is a decentralized database which does not require the individual instances to have perfect connectivity and perfect trust all the time. I can see why that would be something worth doing in a food chain. To trace, for example, a particular load of soy beans to a customer eating a steak, there are a couple of completely autonomous companies/sole proprietors involved. From the original…

But everyone involved is entering the information into the same IBM software front-end ("Food Trust")... So all players involved are using the same front-end and the same back-end, and only Walmart & IBM have the ability to change anything. How does a blockchain benefit anyone (other than IBM) in this situation?

I don't know the details of that particular system, but what you say doesn't necessarily preclude a block chain system.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#86

Post by prepend »

simias wrote: post #51
maccio92 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decentralization is critical to cryptocurrencies, but that's just one use case on top of an entire blockchain ecosystem. Not all blockchains need to be decentralized, and not all blockchains are cryptocurrencies. This specific instance grants assurance that neither Walmart or anyone in-between is tampering with the database.

>This specific instance grants assurance that neither Walmart or anyone in-between is tampering with the database. We've had this discussion a billion times before on HN so I'll avoid a huge wall of text but it always boils down to the same conclusion: blockchains (as in bitcoin) are about being completely decentralized and trustless. It's an "and" not an "or", if you remove one of these imperatives they're completel…

“you're fine with anybody using PGP and sha256sum labeling their product as a blockchain”

I like this. I’ve worked in orgs where PKI meant identity and identity proofing and expensive certs. Blockchain changes the pki from “this public key is definitely prepend” to “this public key means the holder of the private key did it.” This is because the “blockchain” either does consensus or has an authority on that key’s action being appropriate.

So being able to use pgp and sha256 as appropriate is a good thing in my book. Could this be done without blockchain with smarter it policy? Yes. But it didn’t, and now there’s some way of formally structuring how non-authoritative identities can perform functions.

So breaking pki out of the authentication world is pretty useful for me.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#87

Post by joshbaptiste »

code4tee wrote: post #18

IBM is quietly brushing its Watson mess under the carpet and now they’re trying to focus on blockchain. However this is just as substanceless and full of marketing fluff as Watson was. There’s nothing being done here that couldn’t or shouldn’t just be handled with a traditional database. Having IBM “run it” also sort of defeats the whole decentralized aspect of blockchain technologies. You don’t need “blockchain” to…

Nope, a blockchain would serve a good purpose to have disparate entities share immutable data with event history, as today most companies are not giving each other access to their respective databases.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#88

Post by komali2 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #83

Alternate solution: do not announce small foodbourne illness outbreaks. In the article's example, 250 people got sick from a lettuce outbreak, and everyone stopped buying lettuce, hitting the whole industry. But 5 million people get sick from Norovirus alone in the US every year. Leafy vegetables like lettuce are the most common source of food illness. Telling people about a minor outbreak is just letting them freak…

Wouldn't it be necessary to know the number of people eating lettuce for this argument to hold weight?

For example, I could argue so few people were affected because not many were eating lettuce, and then when news broke, nobody was eating lettuce.

I know more people that drive cars than eat lettuce.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#89

Post by prepend »

peterwwillis wrote: post #83

Alternate solution: do not announce small foodbourne illness outbreaks. In the article's example, 250 people got sick from a lettuce outbreak, and everyone stopped buying lettuce, hitting the whole industry. But 5 million people get sick from Norovirus alone in the US every year. Leafy vegetables like lettuce are the most common source of food illness. Telling people about a minor outbreak is just letting them freak…

The reason only 250 get sick is because of the notification. Traffic accidents aren’t contagious. Comparing a static risk and a dynamic risk is inappropriate.

If lettuce is contaminated with ecoli at the source and you don’t recall/stop people eating it, you will have much more adverse health events. Different outbreaks have different responses and sometimes that includes notifying the at risk population and the source of the risk. [0] (this list includes lots of norovirus outbreaks and the response for them)

We should also be educating people about food borne illness, but this isn’t exclusive to outbreak control.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/outbreaks/multistate-outbreak...

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#90

Post by ceejayoz »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #84
ceejayoz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those dozen or two separate legal entities can all hop on a blockchain, they can likely make a POST request to Walmart's API too, right?

Putting data into a blockchain is something different from making a TCP/IP connection to the internet. In a blockchain system, a particular piece of information has to eventually reach all interested parties, of course. But it can do so through a chain of potentially untrusted intermediaries, which also don't have to be connected through an internet connection. For example a truck servicing multiple farms or multiple…

My phone's Instagram app lets me "publish" images without a data connection. It queues them up, then POSTs them off to Facebook's API once I'm back online.

None of this requires - or even benefits from - a blockchain.

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