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Maybe I'm confused here, but the blockchain basically will say: Kolula Pushta Road 25 Kabul is owned by Ahmed with Public Key XYZ. For it to be transfered to

Maybe I'm confused here, but the blockchain basically will say: Kolula Pushta Road 25 Kabul is owned by Ahmed with Public Key XYZ. For it to be transfered to someone else, you need the private key that can pass validation for public key XYZ. Local officials do not have this private key, only Ahmed does, stored in his personal wallet. Local officials could try to temper with their node of the blockchain ledger, but other nodes would catch it and penalize them. If you need to deal with an edge case, say someone claims Ahmed is dead and they are his heir. Local officials can initiate a transfer where the ledger says "conditional Amhed is dead and thus key XYZ is missing, transferring to his heir Mohammad with key HJL. This could be something that other nodes accept as a transaction. There could be many things here built into the system. You could have the nodes notify some associated email with the current owner Amhed and grant them like 60 days to cancel the transaction. Or you could let Ahmed show back at any time in the future and reclaim the possession, etc. These are the kind of things that a decentralized trusted network running a blockchain could in theory be designed to manage. If you narrow "blockchain" simply to mean a signed ledger of transaction that maintain history then no, it's not really that much better, since it's still centrally managed and operated. It's only once you distributed things and let the network define rules of operations that it can become beneficial in my opinion. Edit: Now that said, even if it was centralized, in theory, the ledger could only be tempered with by people with access to the code of ledger database or its servers. Sometimes you might be able to trust those more so than say any clerk or local official which can only use the software, because they might be better paid or there are less of them and hard to contact and thus bribe. So even in that case, it might be a little better, maybe the local official can enter the transfer in the ledger, but et least if Ahmed goes to court after there is proof that local official X did a transfer on day Y and that Ahmed was the prior owner. Or you could still enforce the need for Ahmed's private key, etc. So there would be more trail or recourse for Ahmed in theory. Then without a blockchain, there'd be no trail, or no need for a key, or it might be possible for users to modify the whole history, etc.

dmitriid 5y ago
> This could be something... There could be many things... You could have the nodes... you could let... could in theory be designed See how many hypotheticals and "could be"s you're piling on top of blockchain just to make it barely handle the simplest of cases? Moreover, none of these require a blockchain, and can be implemented better, and more efficiently with literally anything else. Even more moreover, your entire premise of "nothing can be done without Ahmed's private key" immediately breaks for any of these: - death, or other incapacitation. Even loss of access to the wallet - power of attorney - co-ownership - time-limited ownership - court orders requiring change of ownership > It's only once you distributed things and let the network define rules of operations that it can become beneficial in my opinion. So far, the "benefit" is: let's have blockchain for the sake of the magical words, and build a tower of babel on top of it to barely manage even the simplest of cases.
- didibus 5y ago
  It just depends if you need a higher level of trust or not. You can implement all that on a central network, or a single machine. But if you have it running over a decentralized network there's more certainty that validation rules and data won't be tempered with. I'm not arguing to build everything with blockchain. I know very much how business can be swayed by buzzwords, but those also shouldn't take away or detract from the potential of a technology. In this case, the ideal network in my opinion would be that you've got some global blockchain network that can record arbitrary data and run contracts attached to the data where it could scale and not be power hungry. If we had that, then you could start to record things like land ownership, and attach contracts to them that dictates the rules for transfer of ownership, time-limited ownership, death, loss of key, etc. Unlike a paper contract signed in handwriting, this contract is signed with people's private keys, and the rules aren't enforced manually but automatically. And you can trust in the data and the enforcement of the rules because you can have trust in the network to do so.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > It just depends if you need a higher level of trust or not. I need trust. And blockchain doesn't provide it. > It just depends if you need a higher level of trust or not. And yet, all you can come up with is "a bit of a stupid example obviously". The moment I propose to you actual real-world problems, your entire argument breaks down into piles of "could be"s and lots and lots of words how blockchain magically solves everything. > you've got some global blockchain network that can record arbitrary data and run contracts attached to the data Why? > then you could start to record things like land ownership - Ahmed pays local authority to record him as an owner. Where's your solution for that? - Ahmed is an atual rightful owner, but then Mohammed pays local authority to register him as the rightful owner instead. Where's your solution for that? > this contract is signed with people's private keys - Mohammad is now registered as the owner. 5 years later, after a prolonged court battle, Zahra proves that the original record is incorrect, and the court rules that the property is now Zahra's. Mohammad doesn't give up his private keys. Where's your solution for that? > dictates the rules for transfer of ownership, time-limited ownership, death, loss of key, etc. Ah, yes. Instead of contracts written in plain language, we now have a complex programmable system written in an esotheric language that requires programmatic access and integration to dozens, if not hundreds of other such systems. And all these contracts are guaranteed to be correct, foolproof, without omissions, and to 100% correctly represent the interests of the parties that sign the contract. Because blockchain. Well, except the time when they are hacked, and require a hard fork and re-writing of history. So much for "non-tempering": https://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists https://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists > Unlike a paper contract signed in handwriting, this contract is signed with people's private keys and the rules aren't enforced manually but automatically. Ah, yes. When a person dies, they automatically register their death from beyond the grave. Or when a person sells property, this is automatically entered into the system through the celestial sphere. Court orders are automatically applied to ownership simply because blockchain. > And you can trust in the data and the enforcement of the rules because you can have trust in the network to do so. Ah yes. The rules are enforced because some numbers in a highy ineffecient, slow distributed append-only log say something.

dmitriid 5y ago

> This could be something... There could be many things... You could have the nodes... you could let... could in theory be designed See how many hypotheticals and "could be"s you're piling on top of blockchain just to make it barely handle the simplest of cases? Moreover, none of these require a blockchain, and can be implemented better, and more efficiently with literally anything else. Even more moreover, your entire premise of "nothing can be done without Ahmed's private key" immediately breaks for any of these: - death, or other incapacitation. Even loss of access to the wallet - power of attorney - co-ownership - time-limited ownership - court orders requiring change of ownership > It's only once you distributed things and let the network define rules of operations that it can become beneficial in my opinion. So far, the "benefit" is: let's have blockchain for the sake of the magical words, and build a tower of babel on top of it to barely manage even the simplest of cases.

didibus 5y ago
It just depends if you need a higher level of trust or not. You can implement all that on a central network, or a single machine. But if you have it running over a decentralized network there's more certainty that validation rules and data won't be tempered with. I'm not arguing to build everything with blockchain. I know very much how business can be swayed by buzzwords, but those also shouldn't take away or detract from the potential of a technology. In this case, the ideal network in my opinion would be that you've got some global blockchain network that can record arbitrary data and run contracts attached to the data where it could scale and not be power hungry. If we had that, then you could start to record things like land ownership, and attach contracts to them that dictates the rules for transfer of ownership, time-limited ownership, death, loss of key, etc. Unlike a paper contract signed in handwriting, this contract is signed with people's private keys, and the rules aren't enforced manually but automatically. And you can trust in the data and the enforcement of the rules because you can have trust in the network to do so.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > It just depends if you need a higher level of trust or not. I need trust. And blockchain doesn't provide it. > It just depends if you need a higher level of trust or not. And yet, all you can come up with is "a bit of a stupid example obviously". The moment I propose to you actual real-world problems, your entire argument breaks down into piles of "could be"s and lots and lots of words how blockchain magically solves everything. > you've got some global blockchain network that can record arbitrary data and run contracts attached to the data Why? > then you could start to record things like land ownership - Ahmed pays local authority to record him as an owner. Where's your solution for that? - Ahmed is an atual rightful owner, but then Mohammed pays local authority to register him as the rightful owner instead. Where's your solution for that? > this contract is signed with people's private keys - Mohammad is now registered as the owner. 5 years later, after a prolonged court battle, Zahra proves that the original record is incorrect, and the court rules that the property is now Zahra's. Mohammad doesn't give up his private keys. Where's your solution for that? > dictates the rules for transfer of ownership, time-limited ownership, death, loss of key, etc. Ah, yes. Instead of contracts written in plain language, we now have a complex programmable system written in an esotheric language that requires programmatic access and integration to dozens, if not hundreds of other such systems. And all these contracts are guaranteed to be correct, foolproof, without omissions, and to 100% correctly represent the interests of the parties that sign the contract. Because blockchain. Well, except the time when they are hacked, and require a hard fork and re-writing of history. So much for "non-tempering": https://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists https://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists > Unlike a paper contract signed in handwriting, this contract is signed with people's private keys and the rules aren't enforced manually but automatically. Ah, yes. When a person dies, they automatically register their death from beyond the grave. Or when a person sells property, this is automatically entered into the system through the celestial sphere. Court orders are automatically applied to ownership simply because blockchain. > And you can trust in the data and the enforcement of the rules because you can have trust in the network to do so. Ah yes. The rules are enforced because some numbers in a highy ineffecient, slow distributed append-only log say something.