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Or they could just use a regular database maintained by the state.

by D13Fd 4y ago

tyingq 4y ago
They can. There's presumably some value in things like digitally signing odometer entries, titles marked as salvage, etc, from dealerships to discourage meddling. It's an area where corruption/fraud has been around a long time. Edit: Note that I never pitched a blockchain. I mentioned digitally signed entries in a regular ledger would work. And I'm not saying signing is a panacea. Just adds some accountability that either the key owner made the entry, or lost control of their key. So it shores up historical holes like bribing an underpaid DMV employee to doctor your title.
- D13Fd 4y ago
  > There's presumably some value in things like digitally signing odometer entries, titles marked as salvage, etc, from dealerships to discourage meddling. It's an area where corruption/fraud has been around a long time. What value do you presume? Having the odometer readings digitally signed in a blockchain database does zilch to prevent fraud. The fraud happens when the person inputs the reading. Likewise, "titles marked as salvage . . . from dealerships to discourage meddling" -- what about blockchain discourages "meddling" over what can be done with a centralized database in the control of the state?
- PKop 4y ago
  How does a decentralized system emerge to solve this? Crypto currencies reward the network with tokens self-contained within the network. What would be given to the public to run this network? Also tying the state of physical reality with a digital ledger is...nearly impossible without simply granting authority to a central player to dictate what the truth state is. How can a blockchain guarantee what is written into it comports with the state of the physical world (which exists separate from it?). This can sort of be done centrally, but then you have to trust this party, at which point they should just run a more efficient regular database. But how can a decentralized network write information to this shared database? How can any of the information be verified? Even honest actors have no means of verifying what they are writing to it is true. Think about it.. there is some odometer somewhere whose state is going to be written. How is it determined? When one reads the ledger, how can you trust what you see there matches the true state of the odometer or whatever? See how this chasm between ledger and physical reality can't really be bridged? These sovereign state matters at the end of the day require to defer to what the state says anyways. A rube goldbergian blockchain solution tacked on top solves nothing here.
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    Who said anything about currencies? Block chain is just a meme term for “decentralized ledger.”
    - PKop 4y ago
      I'm saying something about currencies because arguably it is the only legitimate use-case for "block chains" as popularly understood. How is this hypothetical non-currency decentralized ledger written to? Who has rights to do so? And how does the rest of the network verify that what any individual writes to it is valid? Open public ledgers work because they reward actors (with a currency, used and existing inside the network itself) for securing the network and validating transactions. How does a non-currency ledger reward people for running nodes? How are transactions validated..proof of work? How is consensus reached? If one reads the ledger, how do you verify what it says matches the real state of the physical world it supposedly represents? If you're saying this is none of these things, then why call it "block chain", vs just a permissioned database, centrally controlled?
s1gnp0st 4y ago
You do realize that centralized databases often contain cryptographic signatures as part of an audit trail?

Or they could just use a regular database maintained by the state.

by D13Fd 4y ago

Or they could just use a regular database maintained by the state.

They can. There's presumably some value in things like digitally signing odometer entries, titles marked as salvage, etc, from dealerships to discourage meddling. It's an area where corruption/fraud has been around a long time. Edit: Note that I never pitched a blockchain. I mentioned digitally signed entries in a regular ledger would work. And I'm not saying signing is a panacea. Just adds some accountability that either the key owner made the entry, or lost control of their key. So it shores up historical holes like bribing an underpaid DMV employee to doctor your title.

D13Fd 4y ago
> There's presumably some value in things like digitally signing odometer entries, titles marked as salvage, etc, from dealerships to discourage meddling. It's an area where corruption/fraud has been around a long time. What value do you presume? Having the odometer readings digitally signed in a blockchain database does zilch to prevent fraud. The fraud happens when the person inputs the reading. Likewise, "titles marked as salvage . . . from dealerships to discourage meddling" -- what about blockchain discourages "meddling" over what can be done with a centralized database in the control of the state?
PKop 4y ago
How does a decentralized system emerge to solve this? Crypto currencies reward the network with tokens self-contained within the network. What would be given to the public to run this network? Also tying the state of physical reality with a digital ledger is...nearly impossible without simply granting authority to a central player to dictate what the truth state is. How can a blockchain guarantee what is written into it comports with the state of the physical world (which exists separate from it?). This can sort of be done centrally, but then you have to trust this party, at which point they should just run a more efficient regular database. But how can a decentralized network write information to this shared database? How can any of the information be verified? Even honest actors have no means of verifying what they are writing to it is true. Think about it.. there is some odometer somewhere whose state is going to be written. How is it determined? When one reads the ledger, how can you trust what you see there matches the true state of the odometer or whatever? See how this chasm between ledger and physical reality can't really be bridged? These sovereign state matters at the end of the day require to defer to what the state says anyways. A rube goldbergian blockchain solution tacked on top solves nothing here.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Who said anything about currencies? Block chain is just a meme term for “decentralized ledger.”
  - PKop 4y ago
    I'm saying something about currencies because arguably it is the only legitimate use-case for "block chains" as popularly understood. How is this hypothetical non-currency decentralized ledger written to? Who has rights to do so? And how does the rest of the network verify that what any individual writes to it is valid? Open public ledgers work because they reward actors (with a currency, used and existing inside the network itself) for securing the network and validating transactions. How does a non-currency ledger reward people for running nodes? How are transactions validated..proof of work? How is consensus reached? If one reads the ledger, how do you verify what it says matches the real state of the physical world it supposedly represents? If you're saying this is none of these things, then why call it "block chain", vs just a permissioned database, centrally controlled?

s1gnp0st 4y ago

You do realize that centralized databases often contain cryptographic signatures as part of an audit trail?