3 ms·

I work with ALOT of documents that have a deadline / need to be finished at a certain time. The blockchain helps me to proof mathematical in front of a curt tha

I work with ALOT of documents that have a deadline / need to be finished at a certain time. The blockchain helps me to proof mathematical in front of a curt that the file already existed at a given date. It is the most secure way that I know. A simple example of what I need without a middlemen. A student writes a thesis. The last time he is allowed to modify the file is friday evening. He can now send the file via mail or deliver in person to prove that the thesis was finished by then. However he then trusts either the mail server administration or the person at the front desk. This is fine in most cases and works like this since decades. I however do not want to trust a person or company. I do not want ANY possible explanation how I could have archived it in a different way.

threatofrain 4y ago
Naive response here, but that particular use case seems solved by a central authority, where the school is the entity that (1) cares the most and (2) should other students or decentralised entities be involved in observing student progress?
prepend 4y ago
It’s accepted in court that a simple email showing the file as an attachment is acceptable. Certainly blockchains are more trustworthy, but acceptableness in court is a pretty low bar. I mean having something signed on paper in front of a notary is acceptable. What cases are you involved with where a notary isn’t acceptable? Or a non-blockchain digital signature? I’m involved in really high dollar amount contracts and we just use pki-based digital signatures with a time stamp. Of course the time stamp could be fraudulent, but so could the notary’s stamp. But its acceptable in court and stands up to litigation. I also teach a class and would accept an email from the student as proof. To me that’s more reliable than me having to research some blockchain signature that I’m unfamiliar with. These are hypothetical use cases and don’t solve a real problem. And they certainly don’t justify paying transaction fees as they are now. It’s cheaper to just pay DocuSign.
- nouveaux 4y ago
  A good place to look for middleman that can be cut with blockchain is the exchange between two random people that a third party needs to trust. The example with the email in the court is a bad example because it is not the court's job to prove whether or not an email is fraudulent. It is the opposing counsel. Non digital evidence works the same way. This is why you have expert witnesses to verify or invalidate some evidence. A better example would be real estate transactions. It would be best for everyone involved to move real estate transactions to the blockchain. I want to know that John Doe is the real owner of a house when I pay him $500k for the house. The government handles this with paper and their databases now but it would be far more efficient to do this on the blockchain.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    I'm still not convinced blockchain is a good solution here. Why is a cryptographic signature by each party that they acknowledge the transfer insufficient? About the only arguable place is maybe escrow but the marginal increase in cost of traditional escrow vs blockchain seems insignificant vs the magnitudes of monies being discussed. Additionally, if I make a mistake and send things to the wrong account, with escrow & traditional banking I probably can unwind that transaction. With blockchain, not so much.
    - aliswe 4y ago
      to me a blockchain is very similar to a cryptographic signature used in a recursive manner, meaning that a new document which is based on the previous document history includes the signatures for all those documents and signs it all in order to prove that the chain has not been tampered with. im not at all a blockchain proponent but i really see a usecase here. but then again i see even git as a blockchain so its not that it would be expensive or exciting to get it working. (Dubai reportedly uses blockchain for their property register) this is actually a common attack vector in countries like Pakistan were someone falsifies a stamped court document that actually the current owner of a certain property is not valid because he bought it from someone who did not actually own the property. the rightful owner is therefor me. (called qabza in urdu)

threatofrain 4y ago

Naive response here, but that particular use case seems solved by a central authority, where the school is the entity that (1) cares the most and (2) should other students or decentralised entities be involved in observing student progress?

prepend 4y ago

It’s accepted in court that a simple email showing the file as an attachment is acceptable. Certainly blockchains are more trustworthy, but acceptableness in court is a pretty low bar. I mean having something signed on paper in front of a notary is acceptable. What cases are you involved with where a notary isn’t acceptable? Or a non-blockchain digital signature? I’m involved in really high dollar amount contracts and we just use pki-based digital signatures with a time stamp. Of course the time stamp could be fraudulent, but so could the notary’s stamp. But its acceptable in court and stands up to litigation. I also teach a class and would accept an email from the student as proof. To me that’s more reliable than me having to research some blockchain signature that I’m unfamiliar with. These are hypothetical use cases and don’t solve a real problem. And they certainly don’t justify paying transaction fees as they are now. It’s cheaper to just pay DocuSign.

nouveaux 4y ago
A good place to look for middleman that can be cut with blockchain is the exchange between two random people that a third party needs to trust. The example with the email in the court is a bad example because it is not the court's job to prove whether or not an email is fraudulent. It is the opposing counsel. Non digital evidence works the same way. This is why you have expert witnesses to verify or invalidate some evidence. A better example would be real estate transactions. It would be best for everyone involved to move real estate transactions to the blockchain. I want to know that John Doe is the real owner of a house when I pay him $500k for the house. The government handles this with paper and their databases now but it would be far more efficient to do this on the blockchain.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  I'm still not convinced blockchain is a good solution here. Why is a cryptographic signature by each party that they acknowledge the transfer insufficient? About the only arguable place is maybe escrow but the marginal increase in cost of traditional escrow vs blockchain seems insignificant vs the magnitudes of monies being discussed. Additionally, if I make a mistake and send things to the wrong account, with escrow & traditional banking I probably can unwind that transaction. With blockchain, not so much.
  - aliswe 4y ago
    to me a blockchain is very similar to a cryptographic signature used in a recursive manner, meaning that a new document which is based on the previous document history includes the signatures for all those documents and signs it all in order to prove that the chain has not been tampered with. im not at all a blockchain proponent but i really see a usecase here. but then again i see even git as a blockchain so its not that it would be expensive or exciting to get it working. (Dubai reportedly uses blockchain for their property register) this is actually a common attack vector in countries like Pakistan were someone falsifies a stamped court document that actually the current owner of a certain property is not valid because he bought it from someone who did not actually own the property. the rightful owner is therefor me. (called qabza in urdu)