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What is the advantage of using a block chain for storing the information rather than just having a database? Is there some intrinsic benefit or is it just marke

What is the advantage of using a block chain for storing the information rather than just having a database? Is there some intrinsic benefit or is it just marketing hype?

phil21 10y ago
I'm not in shipping - but wild speculation could be once you sign the blockchain it's now your legal responsibility - no dickering over timestamps, is that really our guy's signature, forged paperwork, whatever. You signed it now it's yours until someone else does. Implementing that may be somewhat more difficult though, and I have no idea if this is really that large of a problem or not.
- benchodroff 10y ago
  It likely is a problem given that shipping is often a many to many relationship between multiple providers -- which one do you trust to provide data lineage of the entire shipment? Nobody - use a blockchain
- zhte415 10y ago
  It is incredibly tough. The manual steps in trade, down to scribbling a note on the back of a single original piece of A4 paper, are tedious and tediously documented, UCP for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Customs_and_Practice_for_Documentary_Credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Customs_and_Practice_f.... Maersk will be implementing a new standard of implementation here, replacing a standard that's been bootstrapped over centries. Expect an ISO or similar to be created to define it, with a lot of reach into the workflow of insurance companies and banking (LCs, etc). This would be an interesting area to 'disrupt' if you could catch early wind of the emerging standards and ride on the back of a new standard coming into implementation.
jjn2009 10y ago
the person who owns the database can write whatever they want in it, where as a blockchain provides a chain of trust which extends to the (hopefully secure) client. An immutable ledger allows circumvention the armies of people needed for rubber stamping documents and verifying rubber stamps.
rmccue 10y ago
From the original press release [0]: > “As a global integrator of container logistics with the ambition to digitize global trade, we are excited about this cooperation and its potential to bring substantial efficiency and productivity gains to global supply chains, while decreasing fraud and increasing security,” said Ibrahim Gokcen, chief digital officer, Maersk. > This promotes sustainable transport by integrating shipping processes and partners, and establishing evaluation frameworks through increased transparency and trusted access. Seems like the benefits are a) transparency, and b) distributed. This is Maersk leading the effort, but it seems the plan is to get the entire chain onto the same system, which basically requires decentralisation. Edit: The New York Times article [1] lays out more details in their reporting too. [0]: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/51712.wss http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/51712.wss [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/business/dealbook/blockchain-ibm-bitcoin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/business/dealbook/blockch...
BjoernKW 10y ago
Trustless trust meaning that with a blockchain you don't have to trust any party involved to be certain data hasn't been tampered with. There's a huge number of agents involved in supply chain management not all of whom can be trusted. There are third party institutes, tests labs and the like whose only job is ensure everyone plays by the rules. Making matters worse not all of these institutes can be trusted either in every case every time. It's turtles all the way down ... The blockchain perhaps is not a comprehensive solution to all of these issues but it eliminates a significant opportunity for fraud right from the start. I'd go as far as to say that supply chain management probably is one of the few truly viable use cases for the blockchain.
- patrickk 10y ago
  > I'd go as far as to say that supply chain management probably is one of the few truly viable use cases for the blockchain. I get that there is a massive amount of hype and bullshit around everything "blockchain", but surely it's way too early to write it off[1]. It could be as prevalent as HTTP or SQL some day (or maybe it disappears, but it's too early either way). I think one exciting area is voting - imagine the convenience of mail-in ballots, verifiable, instant vote counts, and the ability of anyone, e.g. the electorate, universities, political parties, transparency non-profits and so on to act as a node and therefore monitor the voting in real time. I think it could be a great innovation to strengthen democracy. Imagine a real time, direct democracy that has voting (or even just opinion polls) on a continuous basis to keep politicians in check. [1] PG likes things that are written off as geek's toys: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/819810970021134337 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/819810970021134337
  - datenwolf 10y ago
    > I think one exciting area is voting Uhhh… I'm no expert regarding blockchains, just know what the basic idea is. And in my understanding you can't have truly anonymous votes using a blockchain. Or can that be done?
    - yorwba 10y ago
alexro 10y ago
>> is it just marketing hype? It is now moving in the direction of becoming a politically only acceptable solution, when no one can impose any negative judgment making the solution provider look malicious even before anything bad happens. So kind of a measure to eliminate potential risk
bane 10y ago
In these kinds of cases it's mostly about simplifying transactions or contracts via hash-based signatures. Scenario: 1. You request service A from me 2. I confirm receipt of service request 3. I provide service A 4. You confirm receipt of service A and provide payment 5. I confirm receipt of payment Since each block of a blockchain is dependent on the previous blocks, it makes it impossible for me to go back and adjust the record to say, claim you never paid me, or change the order quantity, or for you to go back and claim you never ordered a thing. It makes 5 depend on 4 which depends on 3 which depends on 2 which depends on 1 and altering any of the steps "breaks" the later steps in such a way that you not only can tell they're broken, but also at which step did the chain break. In this sense you can basically use math to provide enforcement of the kinds of transactions that might occur during a sale. With shipping containers you can simply put in movements of the container, or manifest of the containers or track bill of lading [1]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_lading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_lading

What is the advantage of using a block chain for storing the information rather than just having a database? Is there some intrinsic benefit or is it just marketing hype?

phil21 10y ago

I'm not in shipping - but wild speculation could be once you sign the blockchain it's now your legal responsibility - no dickering over timestamps, is that really our guy's signature, forged paperwork, whatever. You signed it now it's yours until someone else does. Implementing that may be somewhat more difficult though, and I have no idea if this is really that large of a problem or not.

benchodroff 10y ago
It likely is a problem given that shipping is often a many to many relationship between multiple providers -- which one do you trust to provide data lineage of the entire shipment? Nobody - use a blockchain
zhte415 10y ago
It is incredibly tough. The manual steps in trade, down to scribbling a note on the back of a single original piece of A4 paper, are tedious and tediously documented, UCP for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Customs_and_Practice_for_Documentary_Credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Customs_and_Practice_f.... Maersk will be implementing a new standard of implementation here, replacing a standard that's been bootstrapped over centries. Expect an ISO or similar to be created to define it, with a lot of reach into the workflow of insurance companies and banking (LCs, etc). This would be an interesting area to 'disrupt' if you could catch early wind of the emerging standards and ride on the back of a new standard coming into implementation.

jjn2009 10y ago

the person who owns the database can write whatever they want in it, where as a blockchain provides a chain of trust which extends to the (hopefully secure) client. An immutable ledger allows circumvention the armies of people needed for rubber stamping documents and verifying rubber stamps.

rmccue 10y ago

From the original press release [0]: > “As a global integrator of container logistics with the ambition to digitize global trade, we are excited about this cooperation and its potential to bring substantial efficiency and productivity gains to global supply chains, while decreasing fraud and increasing security,” said Ibrahim Gokcen, chief digital officer, Maersk. > This promotes sustainable transport by integrating shipping processes and partners, and establishing evaluation frameworks through increased transparency and trusted access. Seems like the benefits are a) transparency, and b) distributed. This is Maersk leading the effort, but it seems the plan is to get the entire chain onto the same system, which basically requires decentralisation. Edit: The New York Times article [1] lays out more details in their reporting too. [0]: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/51712.wss http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/51712.wss [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/business/dealbook/blockchain-ibm-bitcoin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/business/dealbook/blockch...

BjoernKW 10y ago

Trustless trust meaning that with a blockchain you don't have to trust any party involved to be certain data hasn't been tampered with. There's a huge number of agents involved in supply chain management not all of whom can be trusted. There are third party institutes, tests labs and the like whose only job is ensure everyone plays by the rules. Making matters worse not all of these institutes can be trusted either in every case every time. It's turtles all the way down ... The blockchain perhaps is not a comprehensive solution to all of these issues but it eliminates a significant opportunity for fraud right from the start. I'd go as far as to say that supply chain management probably is one of the few truly viable use cases for the blockchain.

patrickk 10y ago
> I'd go as far as to say that supply chain management probably is one of the few truly viable use cases for the blockchain. I get that there is a massive amount of hype and bullshit around everything "blockchain", but surely it's way too early to write it off[1]. It could be as prevalent as HTTP or SQL some day (or maybe it disappears, but it's too early either way). I think one exciting area is voting - imagine the convenience of mail-in ballots, verifiable, instant vote counts, and the ability of anyone, e.g. the electorate, universities, political parties, transparency non-profits and so on to act as a node and therefore monitor the voting in real time. I think it could be a great innovation to strengthen democracy. Imagine a real time, direct democracy that has voting (or even just opinion polls) on a continuous basis to keep politicians in check. [1] PG likes things that are written off as geek's toys: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/819810970021134337 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/819810970021134337
- datenwolf 10y ago
  > I think one exciting area is voting Uhhh… I'm no expert regarding blockchains, just know what the basic idea is. And in my understanding you can't have truly anonymous votes using a blockchain. Or can that be done?
  - yorwba 10y ago

alexro 10y ago

>> is it just marketing hype? It is now moving in the direction of becoming a politically only acceptable solution, when no one can impose any negative judgment making the solution provider look malicious even before anything bad happens. So kind of a measure to eliminate potential risk

bane 10y ago

In these kinds of cases it's mostly about simplifying transactions or contracts via hash-based signatures. Scenario: 1. You request service A from me 2. I confirm receipt of service request 3. I provide service A 4. You confirm receipt of service A and provide payment 5. I confirm receipt of payment Since each block of a blockchain is dependent on the previous blocks, it makes it impossible for me to go back and adjust the record to say, claim you never paid me, or change the order quantity, or for you to go back and claim you never ordered a thing. It makes 5 depend on 4 which depends on 3 which depends on 2 which depends on 1 and altering any of the steps "breaks" the later steps in such a way that you not only can tell they're broken, but also at which step did the chain break. In this sense you can basically use math to provide enforcement of the kinds of transactions that might occur during a sale. With shipping containers you can simply put in movements of the container, or manifest of the containers or track bill of lading [1]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_lading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_lading