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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

#91

Post by homero »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #65
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…

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…

Yes a real blockchain, not a centralized one from IBM

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#92

Post by jessaustin »

noxToken wrote: post #71
simias wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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 completely pointless. You're completely right, but I want to point out something subtle that I almost missed. For something to be considered a blockchain, it does not have to be distributed (as you noted). There can be a centralized entity (Wal-Mart) controlli…

Is Wal-Mart really the threat in this case? I thought the threat was farmers too cheap to give their workers restroom breaks. This system will catch those farmers, and limit the sale of their produce. Wal-Mart doesn't actually want to sell dangerous lettuce.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#93

Post by chao- »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #85
stinky613 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't preclude it, sure, but what stinky613 said does mean that a blockchain does not offer particular advantages over a more traditional datastore (regardless of how that datastore is accessed). I believe that was their point: that in this situation, a blockchain requires more effort for no additional benefit.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#94

Post by henvic »

qubax wrote: post #40
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…

Yeah blockchain seems like overkill here. But the world of corporatism is just as susceptible to fads like every other subculture. It's like execs are desperate to force blockchain on every problem because it's the hip new thing. Even though most problems don't need blockchains and there are far better and simpler solutions. Similar to the nosql fad. Who needs ACID compliance? If things fail silently and we lose a fe…

The playground is all about running critical systems with databases that are ACID compliance for the past two months, instead of 23 years. After all, obviously you need webscale, and something that is working successfully in the industry for so long must be outdated by now as structured data is antiquated by definition (even though immutability sounds cool). lol

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#95

Post by drunken-serval »

wolfgke wrote: post #56
api wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM is run by salespeople. This is what you get.

Salespeople better know what problems a blockchain solves that could not be solved with previous methods. Because this is something that customers will ask.

Not necessarily. The company I work for has a number of customers asking for blockchain but they don't know what it is. They just want it because it's the new cool thing and it will make them look up to date.

The part of this that's hilarious is we already have verification mechanisms in place. We have logs, controlled access, and verification hashes. It would not be easy to bypass the controls we already have.

On top of all of this, most of our customers can't even figure out how to read their emails to click a password reset link.

If IBM wants to fleece people, more POWER to them.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#96

Post by gnu8 »

0898 wrote: post #62
duxup wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM really seems stuck in their old systems / and at some level doesn't understand what to do with new systems. I was talking to someone who was using the "IBM cloud". They went to spin up some servers and etc and IBM was all "that will take a few weeks, we have to install them". At least to me "cloud" includes the ability to spin stuff up on demand.... IBM was operating it like you were ordering from a very old co-l…

Yes. They kind of claimed Watson would tell you the answer even if you didn’t even know the question.

“Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#97

Post by peterwwillis »

prepend wrote: post #89
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 sour…

Let's compare the same things, then.

73 million Americans are infected with E.coli every year and 5,000 die. Only 5 died in this outbreak. You think that number was significantly reduced because it was announced that there was a single small outbreak?

The outbreak was minor, but the effect on the economy and people's state of mind was overwhelmingly more powerful. It's fine to notify an at risk population if you can, but what do you gain if just a few less people get sick? What do you lose when people stop supporting an entire industry?

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#98

Post by rocqua »

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?

Just guessing, but if appending to the chain requires signatures from IBM / Walmart, then all you need is to get the blockchain from somewhere, and you can verify it. With in-build non-repudiation.

This is of course also possible with signed responses to queries. I think the advantage here is that the signatures are build into the data-store. This just simplifies verification and replication.

Re: Walmart Requires Lettuce, Spinach Suppliers to Join Blockchain

#99

Post by emodendroket »

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…

What's amazing to me is that, in this case, that's completely obvious to anyone technical. Lots of people know only a little bit about AI, even if they're computer programmers; I think most people can appreciate the idea of a distributed database.
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