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IBM retired theirs and now Microsoft. It blows my mind that anyone in their right mind would ever make a blockchain using these companies’ proprietary implement

IBM retired theirs and now Microsoft. It blows my mind that anyone in their right mind would ever make a blockchain using these companies’ proprietary implementations. Not that I understand the other blockchain projects, but it seems even crazier to use a proprietary company’s solution.

andyana 5y ago
> Blockchain offers the capacity to create a “digital birth certificate” for every part and update it each time the part moves through the supply chain or is installed on a plane. The part’s status also gets updated every time the plane is serviced or inspected by a technician. They think it's better to use a blockchain for this instead of a spreadsheet.
- waych 5y ago
  Blockchain allows multiple parties to amend data using distributed and untrusting infrastructure, in a tamper proof way. The problems addressed are a bit more involved than a spreadsheet.
  - qeternity 5y ago
    This is classic blockchain handwaving. If you’re an airplane manufacturer sourcing parts, you’re going to be placing a hell of a lot of trust in your partners. Jumping through all the hoops of blockchain gets you very little, if anything, net of cost.
    - reportt 5y ago
      The only time in which you would need blockchain over a centralized DB is when everyone needs access to the DB, but no one trusts each other. Like if you needed to store healthcare information for multiple people which theoretically could be accessed by multiple competing hospitals or something. It's a lot of overhead to legitimize not just using a centralized DB for most applications.
      - nexuist 5y ago
        For most applications, yes. But the "multiple people which theoretically could be accessed by multiple competing hospitals" is actually a real use case too. In many fields competitors could benefit from having access to the same curated, real time dataset. For example, a list of pharmacies or local insurance policy plans if you're a hospital. The problem is that none of the players in the game are incentivized to build this service because it requires someone to host the server on their infrastructure - and if you don't host it yourself, what happens if/when your partner decides to shut it down, or cut you out, or serve you false information? With a small blockchain each competitor can host their own version of the data and share new rows in an auditable, traceable, and permanent way (such that another user cannot go in and delete anything). It's easy to get lost in the hype, but peer to peer applications always serve valid use cases. A peer to peer database is no different even if it's enamored by cryptobros and scammers.
        XorNot 5y ago
        How would this solve anything? Competing for what? If a bunch of people are competing on say, price, then what's stopping them putting any number they want into the system, or similarly just rejecting every number anyone else puts into the system? They have no aligned interests in the blockchain, and outside of it the legal system already defines their responsibility (i.e. prices must be advertised accurately). "Blockchain" aka a Git repository is only useful when multiple trusted parties are trying to coordinate a central source of truth without inadvertently removing each others changes. At which point we can dispense with anything that sounds like cryptocurrency because it's all just signed commits.
      - madeofpalk 5y ago
        Doesn't this only work if no one has the ability to take over 50% of the network?
        2cb 5y ago
        Theoretically, but there are ways to protect against this. That's what proof-of-work and proof-of-stake are for instance. Certainly there is a huge financial incentive to run a 51% attack on Bitcoin or Ethereum but thus far no one has managed it.
    - nexuist 5y ago
      Having a database that can run through multiple nodes should be very enticing given the recent ransomware attacks that ground centralized databases to a halt. Instead of waiting days to restore their billing system, Colonial could have just brought in more nodes under a blockchain system and sacrificed the ransomware'd ones. As long as one survived with the data intact, all other nodes would have been able to get the data from it while verifying lack of tampering (something your backups can't tell you without lots of hard work). Don't we argue against centralization on HN all of the time? There's so many good arguments against putting everything you rely on onto one server that can get bopped by random Ukrainian teenagers.
      - XorNot 5y ago
        Where would the data have survived? Colonial would have to be paying someone to hold their extra nodes, in which case....they could've just paid to hold backups anyway.
      - dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
        > Colonial could have just brought in more nodes under a blockchain system How is that different from having backup copies with a third party? Organizations really need to learn how to make ransmoware-proof backups. Blockchain has many uses but by itself won't protect anyone against ransomware attacks.
        qeternity 5y ago
        It's not different. Like I said, it's just classic blockchain handwaving.
      - qeternity 5y ago
        > Don't we argue against centralization on HN all of the time? No, we argue the right paradigm for the right use case. Both centralization and decentralization have their pros and cons. But the blockchain decentralize-all-the-things group think is just people who don't quite grasp the tech being blinded by the hype. What you've described (adding more nodes) is just classic DR: spin up your infra from append-only backups in a warm site, or better yet, failover to a hot site with minimal downtime.
    - waych 5y ago
      How much value do you give to being tamper proof, to having multi party untrusting infrastructure, to being decentralized? How much do those add up to in your net cost calculation? How do achieve for these with your alternative solutions? What does that cost? The airplane manufacturer doesn't want to expose their database to their partners. They also don't want to write bespoke applications and services with their partners and doesn't really expect them to adapt to those interfaces that in turn front the database. None of this helps reconcile wtf happened across systems when sides disagree. Having a common distributed way to share a ledger is a valid problem to have and a blockchain is a valid way to solve that problem. Contracts further sweeten the pot.
- beckingz 5y ago
  For use cases like this, the automation needed to get the data into and out of a blockchain may make it a better solution than spreadsheets.
  - andyana 5y ago
    No.
galgalesh 5y ago
IBM's implementation is open source. They had a SaaS offering for this open source project on their cloud, which is what they're shutting down.
globular-toast 5y ago
I guess you haven't work at a large corporation that thinks it's a tech company then. I worked at a large insurance company and, while I was there, machine learning and AI were the strongest buzzwords going. Blockchain was just starting to emerge. If you were doing any project at all you could get automatic thumbs up from senior level execs if you name-dropped machine learning or AI. They'd enthusiastically nod their heads upon hearing it. I think this was supposed to convey "great application of this technology I understand!" but once you saw through that it really meant "I've heard of that!"
nickysielicki 5y ago
A bunch of talking heads went on CNBC over the past 5-10 years and talked about how existing cryptocurrencies like bitcoin were outlaw non-starters, but that "blockchain technology" was novel and here to stay, provided that governments and big banks would be able to retain control. Those people were and still are idiots, but there were enough of them to catch the attention of unimaginative MBAs at big unimaginative places like Microsoft and IBM -- to spawn products like these.

andyana 5y ago

> Blockchain offers the capacity to create a “digital birth certificate” for every part and update it each time the part moves through the supply chain or is installed on a plane. The part’s status also gets updated every time the plane is serviced or inspected by a technician. They think it's better to use a blockchain for this instead of a spreadsheet.

waych 5y ago
Blockchain allows multiple parties to amend data using distributed and untrusting infrastructure, in a tamper proof way. The problems addressed are a bit more involved than a spreadsheet.
- qeternity 5y ago
  This is classic blockchain handwaving. If you’re an airplane manufacturer sourcing parts, you’re going to be placing a hell of a lot of trust in your partners. Jumping through all the hoops of blockchain gets you very little, if anything, net of cost.
  - reportt 5y ago
    The only time in which you would need blockchain over a centralized DB is when everyone needs access to the DB, but no one trusts each other. Like if you needed to store healthcare information for multiple people which theoretically could be accessed by multiple competing hospitals or something. It's a lot of overhead to legitimize not just using a centralized DB for most applications.
    - nexuist 5y ago
      For most applications, yes. But the "multiple people which theoretically could be accessed by multiple competing hospitals" is actually a real use case too. In many fields competitors could benefit from having access to the same curated, real time dataset. For example, a list of pharmacies or local insurance policy plans if you're a hospital. The problem is that none of the players in the game are incentivized to build this service because it requires someone to host the server on their infrastructure - and if you don't host it yourself, what happens if/when your partner decides to shut it down, or cut you out, or serve you false information? With a small blockchain each competitor can host their own version of the data and share new rows in an auditable, traceable, and permanent way (such that another user cannot go in and delete anything). It's easy to get lost in the hype, but peer to peer applications always serve valid use cases. A peer to peer database is no different even if it's enamored by cryptobros and scammers.
      - XorNot 5y ago
        How would this solve anything? Competing for what? If a bunch of people are competing on say, price, then what's stopping them putting any number they want into the system, or similarly just rejecting every number anyone else puts into the system? They have no aligned interests in the blockchain, and outside of it the legal system already defines their responsibility (i.e. prices must be advertised accurately). "Blockchain" aka a Git repository is only useful when multiple trusted parties are trying to coordinate a central source of truth without inadvertently removing each others changes. At which point we can dispense with anything that sounds like cryptocurrency because it's all just signed commits.
    - madeofpalk 5y ago
      Doesn't this only work if no one has the ability to take over 50% of the network?
      - 2cb 5y ago
        Theoretically, but there are ways to protect against this. That's what proof-of-work and proof-of-stake are for instance. Certainly there is a huge financial incentive to run a 51% attack on Bitcoin or Ethereum but thus far no one has managed it.
  - nexuist 5y ago
    Having a database that can run through multiple nodes should be very enticing given the recent ransomware attacks that ground centralized databases to a halt. Instead of waiting days to restore their billing system, Colonial could have just brought in more nodes under a blockchain system and sacrificed the ransomware'd ones. As long as one survived with the data intact, all other nodes would have been able to get the data from it while verifying lack of tampering (something your backups can't tell you without lots of hard work). Don't we argue against centralization on HN all of the time? There's so many good arguments against putting everything you rely on onto one server that can get bopped by random Ukrainian teenagers.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Where would the data have survived? Colonial would have to be paying someone to hold their extra nodes, in which case....they could've just paid to hold backups anyway.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
      > Colonial could have just brought in more nodes under a blockchain system How is that different from having backup copies with a third party? Organizations really need to learn how to make ransmoware-proof backups. Blockchain has many uses but by itself won't protect anyone against ransomware attacks.
      - qeternity 5y ago
        It's not different. Like I said, it's just classic blockchain handwaving.
    - qeternity 5y ago
      > Don't we argue against centralization on HN all of the time? No, we argue the right paradigm for the right use case. Both centralization and decentralization have their pros and cons. But the blockchain decentralize-all-the-things group think is just people who don't quite grasp the tech being blinded by the hype. What you've described (adding more nodes) is just classic DR: spin up your infra from append-only backups in a warm site, or better yet, failover to a hot site with minimal downtime.
  - waych 5y ago
    How much value do you give to being tamper proof, to having multi party untrusting infrastructure, to being decentralized? How much do those add up to in your net cost calculation? How do achieve for these with your alternative solutions? What does that cost? The airplane manufacturer doesn't want to expose their database to their partners. They also don't want to write bespoke applications and services with their partners and doesn't really expect them to adapt to those interfaces that in turn front the database. None of this helps reconcile wtf happened across systems when sides disagree. Having a common distributed way to share a ledger is a valid problem to have and a blockchain is a valid way to solve that problem. Contracts further sweeten the pot.
beckingz 5y ago
For use cases like this, the automation needed to get the data into and out of a blockchain may make it a better solution than spreadsheets.
- andyana 5y ago
  No.

galgalesh 5y ago

IBM's implementation is open source. They had a SaaS offering for this open source project on their cloud, which is what they're shutting down.

globular-toast 5y ago

I guess you haven't work at a large corporation that thinks it's a tech company then. I worked at a large insurance company and, while I was there, machine learning and AI were the strongest buzzwords going. Blockchain was just starting to emerge. If you were doing any project at all you could get automatic thumbs up from senior level execs if you name-dropped machine learning or AI. They'd enthusiastically nod their heads upon hearing it. I think this was supposed to convey "great application of this technology I understand!" but once you saw through that it really meant "I've heard of that!"

nickysielicki 5y ago

A bunch of talking heads went on CNBC over the past 5-10 years and talked about how existing cryptocurrencies like bitcoin were outlaw non-starters, but that "blockchain technology" was novel and here to stay, provided that governments and big banks would be able to retain control. Those people were and still are idiots, but there were enough of them to catch the attention of unimaginative MBAs at big unimaginative places like Microsoft and IBM -- to spawn products like these.