When it comes to the whole "supply chain blockchain" thing, I agree it is easy to just think "so, you just mean a signed log?", but there is actually an aspect to the whole thing that makes actual blockchains relevant here - and that's because they're both trying to solve the "double spending" problem.
In this case the thing that a middleman might be trying to "double spend" is a part with a legitimate provenance. A simple record system might show that a middleman received part A from a legitimate source, but not immediately highlight that they sold on parts B and C too, each claiming to be part A. Blockchains solve that problem in a nice way with decentralized trust.
Now, to what extent decentralized trust is relevant in a system apparently operated by Honeywell in a way that seems completely centralized... you know as much as me.
Bearing in mind these documents all start off as paper, I'm not sure that really answers the question of what blockchain adds in the way of evidence of provenance over a scanner and upload facility...
Aircraft part sales aren't trustless, and for a good reason.
Likewise which one do you think they’ll trust if the blockchain disagrees with the paper trail? The paper trail of course, which makes putting this on blockchain worthless.
Naive question, since I'm not familiar with the aircraft parts marketplace: Can the elements of the paper trail be hashed and published publicly, and can then those hashes be factored into the blockchain?
The irony is that what would actually make tangible improvements to aircraft part documentation would be more centralisation, since this allows a lot of cross validation of data on part ownership, maintenance intervals and hours/cycles data with other records regulators keep like data on flight paths and doesn't require sharing of commercially sensitive supply chain and operations information with people who don't need to know. And if you can't trust the regulator not to secretly falsify records, you've got bigger issues....
Yes, of course. But what makes the logical content of the documents/elements in the "paper trail" something that cannot be represented as text files or perhaps photographs?
In a word, trust. You can represent the information digitally, including via scanning, but you cannot digitally guarantee that the representation matches the paper copy; and the paper copy will likely hold in any disputes absent evidence of manipulation of the paper copy.
So. I, person A, am putting a part up for sail with "omitted details like final prices or provenance documents." How does blockchain solve this problem?
I, person B, am buying that part. Then I'm putting it up for sale again with a different set of details and provenance documents (because I'm a fraud or because I don't have any other documents). How does blockchain solve this problem?
Obviously a blockchain cannot magically make people do things they don't otherwise want to do.
But what a blockchain can do is model parts as tokens that can only exist once on the chain, associate data like provenance documents with each token, then model sales as transfers of the token. Finally, it can do all that in a way that you don't have to trust any single entity (though you might have to trust the consensus of a large number of entities; this is better because pressuring many entities to lie is much harder than pressuring one to lie).
Whether this particular blockchain uses that design is a separate question. I agree that if your trust model isn't distributed, a simple database will usually be better.
> Obviously a blockchain cannot magically make people do things they don't otherwise want to do.
So, what's the point, really, especially if talk about "Distributed trust" if blockchain provides nothing to ensure that trust?
> But what a blockchain can do is model parts as tokens that can only exist once on the chain, associate data like provenance documents with each token, then model sales as transfers of the token... a way that you don't have to trust any single entity
So, the details and provenance magically appear on the blockchain. Who verifies them? Who makes sure they are complete? Let me guess, some centralised/external entity?
So, there's some part associated with a token. What's to stop me from associating the same part with a different token? Or with 100 tokens? I'm guessing there is some centralised agency that verifies that a part is associated with a token through the part's serial number and that: a) no other token is associated with the same number and b) the seller associates serial numbers, and not some random numbers with the token?
I'm not even going into such things as "seller A sold part B to buyer C, received the money and never sent the part", let's start with documents, parts, tokens and associations.
Yes, you need a trusted path to go from physical reality to the token on the blockchain. But blockchains let you shrink that path down to a small number of operations that can be closely scrutinized. (This is how blockchains are similar to cryptography, where the goal is to secure a large amount of data by keeping a small amount of data secret.)
As far as how to build that trust goes, what you're talking about is similar to the certificate signing problem. There are at least two ways to do this — a hierarchy trusted by everyone (akin to PKI) and a decentralized web of trust. Blockchains let you do either or both of those things since entities can sign off on the provenance on the blockchain. You can also have multiple entities sign off on it, similar to GPG keys.
> Yes, you need a trusted path to go from physical reality to the token on the blockchain.
You mean a centralised entity that is able to verify all claims input on the blockchain, cross-reference these inputs, and then enforce the execution of the contract.
Why would you need blockchain then if you trust such an entity with so much more than just with part tracking?
> Blockchains let you do either or both of those things since entities can sign off on the provenance on the blockchain.
wat
> You can also have multiple entities sign off on it, similar to GPG keys.
So, blockchain "solves" exactly one thing: inventory tracking. And does it in an overly complicated and highly inefficient way. Everything else is entrusted to external entities.
To quote an amazing article [1]
--- start quote ---
People treat blockchain as a “futuristic integrity wand”—wave a blockchain at the problem, and suddenly your data will be valid. For almost anything people want to be valid, blockchain has been proposed as a solution.
It’s true that tampering with data stored on a blockchain is hard, but it’s false that blockchain is a good way to create data that has integrity.
Blockchain systems do not magically make the data in them accurate or the people entering the data trustworthy, they merely enable you to audit whether it has been tampered with.
How then, is trust created?
... if you look at any blockchain solution, inevitably you’ll find an awkward workaround to re-create trusted parties in a trustless world.
> You mean a centralised entity that is able to verify all claims input on the blockchain, cross-reference these inputs, and then enforce the execution of the contract.
...
> wat
My belief that you're arguing in good faith is slowly but steadily dropping. I just went over how you could have a network of such entities instead of a single centralized one. This is a policy question that's orthogonal to whether you use a blockchain for this.
> Why would you need blockchain then if you trust such an entity with so much more than just with part tracking?
Trust is not a simple yes or no thing. Blockchains make trust relationships legible and verifiable. You can go back in time and get cryptographic proofs of historical trust relationships.
I'm normally a blockchain skeptic but provenance tracking is a very good use of them.
> My belief that you're arguing in good faith is slowly but steadily dropping.
Nope. I'm just trying not to spell out every little thing that a blockchain solution doesn't provide because they should be obvious. But apparently they aren't. See below.
> Blockchains make trust relationships legible and verifiable.
They don't. They literally don't. The only thing that a blockchain solution provides is that once entered the data can't be tampered with. Which is the smallest part "a marketplace for plane parts" does.
It's easy to see if you split things into "what is done on the blockchain" and "what is done outside the blockchain via centralised entities".
On the blockchain:
- verify that once the data is entered it's not tampered with.
Outside the blockchain:
- verify that details and provenance documents are complete
- verify that the same part isn't listed multiple times
- seller ratings to aid prospective buyers
- buyer ratings (rarely public, but can be implemented to aid dispute resolution)
- verify that a seller doesn't inflate the ratings via fake accounts "buying" a lot of merchandise
- dispute resolution and arbitration when the merchandise isn't delivered, or delivered not as described, or when the buyer withdraws payment, or...
- other fraudulent activity (non-existing sellers/buyers/parts/fakes/replicas/...)
I'm definitely missing more. All of the above require trust, and non of the above are aided in any way, shape or form by a blockchain solution. As evidenced by cars' VINs, provenance tracking is a somewhat solved problem outside blockchain, and there's little to nothing that a blockchain solution can bring to the space.
> they merely enable you to audit whether it has been tampered with
That's literally the entire point here (if I've understood correctly). If anyone tried to falsify even the slightest detail, including Honeywell or an entity hosting the database on their behalf, you can be reasonably certain that you would notice it. The history of each serial number becomes effectively immutable once entered into such a database, which is presumably a very good thing given what these parts are used for.
I'd love if purchasing a used car came with anywhere near that level of guarantee about its history.
> If anyone tried to falsify even the slightest detail, including Honeywell or an entity hosting the database on their behalf, you can be reasonably certain that you would notice it.
You can only notice it once the data is entered. What's to stop me from entering false data? What's to stop me from entering multiple false entries? etc.
The article is correct that you still need oracles (of course you do), but wrong in saying that blockchains are therefore useless.
A better article would be more intellectually curious! For example, it might talk about the sorts of oracles blockchains could enable and how much of a burden they need to bear with and without blockchains.
Shouldn’t blockchain proponents be the ones to come up with such an article?
The article specifically calls out all the use cases for which blockchains have been proposed as a solution. And none of those solutions discussed the need for oracles or discussed “what sorts of oracles they would enable”.
If the data originates offline - e.g. paperwork for an aircraft part - you still need to trust whoever puts the data on the blockchain. Are they who they say they are? Are the documents trustworthy? The blockchain ensures tracability after data is on the blockchain, but not that the initial data makes sense.
So if you need to verify these aspects manually at some point, might as well have everybody work through a regular API.
However, in case of a digital currency - e.g. bitcoin - everything is generated on-chain. There is no crossing the offline/blockchain boundary. You can verify that data was generated according to the algorithm, and how it was used afterwards. This is where a blockchain is not necessarily replacable with a simple REST API.
I don't really understand how this works, but could it happen that another way of verifying is by multiple people submitting the same information? For example, the buyer and the seller of a part recording the transaction.
The comment is likely pointing out that the blockchain portion of this project is just for marketing and doesn't add much if anything to just having a database that people can pull from.
I'm not sure if that is entirely true though. The blockchain piece might provide the needed infrastructure, while providing needed authentication. I'm not really sure though to be honest. Maybe someone with more insight can point out whether the blockchain piece is really needed and helpful or just bloat.
in every article with title "company X uses blockchain for Y" the top comment is someone saying "I don't see why".
Do you have any idea about how the particular company schemantics work? How parts are sourced in this industry? What certification issues are? basically blockchain is about trust.
So you know better than the company management and deem that their CTO made the wrong decision with zero information.
You don't need to know all the details, because time and time again I have seen blockchain hyped up by people who don't fully understand it (or who are selling it) and the following runs it's course:
1. People get excited about blockchain because it's the "it thing" and people have some vague notion that it can apply to a distributed trust problem.
2. In nearly all cases, blockchain is a poor solution for the actual business need. This article, https://blog.smartdec.net/you-do-not-need-blockchain-eight-p... , which was discussed at length on HN a couple months ago, has a detailed section on why blockchain is a bad fit for "object authenticity guarantee".
3. So then what happens is people usually basically end up solving their use case with a kind of "franken-private blockchain" that more often than not is just a cryptographically signed ledger DB.
So yeah, I don't really care if the CTO is Jesus, as far as everything described in the article (which basically just describes a used-goods marketplace, gosh I've never heard of those before), blockchain is a "marketing-speak" solution.
> Before blockchain, a transaction took, on average, two phone calls and four emails to arrange, and two days to close. The sale of larger parts such as engines could take weeks of sending quotes and exchanging documentation. With blockchain, a buyer can locate a part and purchase it immediately.
I still see no reason that can't be solved with a website and a database, and I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that's 90% of what it's actually doing, with perhaps some sort of blockchain tacked on to the side so it can get a good marketing story.
Do you think banks and other users of databases don't think about fraud and corruption? What do you think we have been doing in database research for the last 50 years?
Do you know why a blockchain is useful? Its to enable fraud and corruption detection in a decentralized way. If you are centralized, blockchain is a stupid way to achieve these goals.
I expect more from the WSJ. I expect more from Silicon Valley than this kind of shameless hype.
Core banking technology is from the 70s and hundreds of billions have been invested to keep it running, and upgrading the base later is essentially impossible. This is why everything in banking is super slow and fraud is still rampant.
If you seriously think the banking system is the pinnacle of computer science you have rocks in your head.
I don't want the banking system to be the pinnacle of computer science. As with space probes, aircraft, nuclear power plants, etc., running on old tech that's had a lot of the quirks shaken out already is a plus.
Side note: Saying "fraud is rampant" as an argument for blockchain solutions is pretty funny.
It would be impossible for someone to steal cryptocurrency held in your own wallet, whereas bank accounts are routinely compromised and looted. If not blockchain, certainly there is room for improvement in our current system?
Saying you like our current system despite its high fees, slowness, and numerous deficiencies and don’t want it improved is essentially saying you want progress to halt.
> It would be impossible for someone to steal cryptocurrency held in your own wallet
That's a bizarre assertion. Both individuals and entire exchanges find their cryptocurrency wallets regularly compromised.
> whereas bank accounts are routinely compromised and looted
For which there are both legal and practical protections in place. If your card is compromised, your liability is strictly limited, and it's typically a fairly easy process to recover from.
> Saying you like our current system despite its high fees, slowness, and numerous deficiencies and don’t want it improved is essentially saying you want progress to halt.
This is the "We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do it." fallacy.
Banking can be improved evolutionarily without throwing out the whole system in favor of a fraud-ridden platform with scaling issues. It's already happening - transfers between banks in Europe are now near real-time via TIPS, for example.
None of these improvements require blockchain, or even bleeding edge computer science of any kind.
> It would be impossible for someone to steal cryptocurrency held in your own wallet
That’s a false claim. Have you heard of people losing their wallets or about cold storage for cryptocurrency wallets to prevent others from stealing what one has? A cryptocurrency wallet is not anymore secure than the device it resides on and the security policies and practices used for the device.
> whereas bank accounts are routinely compromised and looted
Which are also regularly reverted without fuss, regardless of whether you can work out who the attacker was.
Banking is more than a ledger system. It's a ledger system and a massive web of institutional protections behind the ledger. By the time blockchain evolves the same norms, institutions, legal precedents, regulatory oversight and so on and so forth it just be a much-slower-than-a-real-database linked list.
> Side note: Saying "fraud is rampant" as an argument for blockchain solutions is pretty funny.
Because many companies using a blockchain are frauds? Many fraudulent companies use the internet too, but you likely wouldn't laugh at an anti-fraud solution based on that.
Not sure what you mean by “everything in banking is super slow”. Maybe things are slow where you live.
For money transfer (which is one part of banking), India has (had, for several years,) a few systems where money from any bank to any other bank in the country can be transferred in a matter of a few seconds or a few minutes depending on the transfer platform that the end user uses. There are no intermediaries in such transactions, like PayPal or something else. Nor are there any electronic systems that take a few days for transfer during working days.
> This is why everything in banking is super slow and fraud is still rampant.
This depends very much on jurisdiction. The USA has slow banking and high fraud because of the clearance system and because of weak identification of account-holders.
In Australia, the UK, Europe and elsewhere, clearance systems are either faster (same-day), or allow direct bank-to-bank clearance, or both. Australia has strict banking identity laws, making it very difficult to open fraudulent accounts.
Companies that focus on online gambling, for example, would not be better off with a centralized database. To my knowledge, there used to be no way for someone engaging in online gambling to verify that the game is using honest odds. With Ethereum smart contracts, they can see exactly what code is being executes.
It's not trolling, seems quite a valid observation.
Still, to disagree though: Hashing and storing digital evidence seems like a good use. You can prove without a doubt that a certain picture, video, OS image existed at a certain point in time.
Current police methods for digital forensics leave a lot to be desired with regards to this stuff. Chain of custody gets a lot murkier with bits and bytes.
Here’s the ‘groundbreaking blockchain marketplace’. Looks like a shitty ad-filled Bootstrap template to me. Blockchain is vaguely mentioned halfway down the “about” page.
"Honeywell Aerospace first deployed the system based on open-source blockchain technology called Hyperledger and tested it on Microsoft Corp.’s Azure cloud. The company moved the blockchain to an internal cloud to be able to control security and data privacy, Mr. Muthukrishnan said."
So in other words, they might as well have built a normal application on a reliable database like MySQL.
I expected more from WSJ, but apparently their journalists are morons and don't exercise even iota of skepticism in the face of blockchain hype.
Blockchain offers real benefits ... but this application is not one of them.
