5 ms·
> Ethereum based blockchains provide an ability to create an auditable log of events If all they want is a log of events, why not use a tried and true database
by hudon 9y ago
> Ethereum based blockchains provide an ability to create an auditable log of events
If all they want is a log of events, why not use a tried and true database whose performance is more well understood? MySQL, Cassandra, whatever.
You can add the ability to audit the tables by signing data updates with public key crypto.
- subway 9y agoBy using a blockchain, you enable auditing organizations to participate in the authentication process. For instance, I might publish a private message to the blockchain that is an authentication request to resource X. A smart contract would then act on that authentication request, and publish either an ACCEPT or REJECT message. By bringing auditing organizations into the blockchain, every authentication attempt is sent to the auditing organization before access is granted. The key is that every transaction must be made known to the auditors before it is acted on. By logging to a traditional db, you're at the mercy of the party responsible for sharing out those logs.
- dfischer 9y agoInteresting. Seems like potentially cool ideas in government and politics for transparency.
- hudon 9y agoHere is your schema: DATA | auditor_sig ------------------ Now: a) Assume 3 components: client, server, auditorService b) How to write to server: 1- client sends DATA to auditorService 2- auditorService signs DATA and returns S(DATA) 3- client writes (DATA, S(DATA)) to server c) How to read: 1- client reads (DATA, S(DATA)) from server 2- client verifies S(DATA) 3.1- valid? -> continue 3.2- invalid? -> delete DATA from server There are ways you can configure this to make either of these services have more weight (I made the server weak in this setup), and you can also give read access to everyone if you want it to be public (and only a subset of clients get write access). You don't need a blockchain.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zeroxfe 9y agoFederated blockchains allow multiple parties in an industry (for example) to maintain a shared trusted database, with no single owner, or single point of failure. (Also, changing immutable data or posting fraudulent transactions requires collusion between multiple parties.) This is why many large industries like healthcare and finance are actively exploring this space.
- bduerst 9y agoDistributed databases can be configured to work that way as well. Why do you need a proof-of-work blockchain? With such a small number of participants doesn't that weaken it's integrity to attacks, especially without capital incentives?
- omarchowdhury 9y agoPlease someone answer this.
- subway 9y agoThere's nothing that ties a blockchain to proof of work. Proof of work just just one consensus protocol. For instance, JP Morgan's Quorum is working on Raft based consensus. https://github.com/jpmorganchase/quorum/blob/master/raft/doc.md https://github.com/jpmorganchase/quorum/blob/master/raft/doc...
- hudon 9y agoThe nodes are federated and you're still calling this a blockchain? What definition of the word "blockchain" are you using? Is this not more commonly called a "distributed database"?
- cbr 9y agoTo me, "blockchain" implies the individual nodes don't trust each other, while "distributed database" does.
- 9y ago
- baby 9y agoIf I understand correctly, this is basically a database but in a merkle tree form + crypto. There is also no proof of work as it is not needed. Maybe the client has key pinning baked in it, where each bank owns a key?
- hudon 9y agoIf you take Ethereum and you remove ETH/gas, you remove proof of work, you remove decentralized computation because that's just really inefficient and you want high throughput... can you really call what you have left Ethereum?