Back when “cloud computing” was the latest buzzword, I had the same feeling that I have about LLMs now: Sure, it’s neat and has many uses… but it doesn’t solve everything.
It’s worth noting that I had the same feeling about block-chain, but I still don’t know about a practical use cases for a public write-only database.
I can give you one really quickly, birth and death certificates, which would establish, based on history, exactly where you were born and when you died, so you could always prove your identity by saying, hey, look here, it’s available globally.
But the accuracy of this information would still depend on external institutions or persons that you have to trust, right? I have admittedly never dived too deep into the whole block chain topic, but that seems to go against the underlying idea.
I mean, if it’s the blockchain, I assume that you’re trusting the parents who would register their child when they were born, since the child can’t really register themselves. My thought would be maybe due on-chain signatures for the parents saying that their child was born and then some number of family friends who also physically see the child and can verify that they exist would also sign.
I mean I can’t personally see why you would wish to do this because if you were reported to be dead then you would be a non-person and therefore would not be eligible for things like the Geneva Convention or basic human rights because you don’t exist. So, like, in that case, if I killed you, it wouldn’t be murder because you were already dead.
Alright, I’m going to be a real pain in the arse here and throw some edge cases at that idea - not because I’m trying to be a cockwaffle (I can manage that all by myself), but trying to straighten out my understanding of these things…
In short, what criteria does the data have to meet to make it immutable, and can that be changed in future?
Birth certificates are brilliant for establishing time dates and places, but what if someone changes their name or gender partway through life? Is there a function to amend the original blockchain entry, or is a new one created that supersedes an old entry in the ledger?
These are actually very good questions. As far as when it’s immutable, that’s almost immediately because of the hash power of the network. After about 60 minutes, you can really trust that it cannot be reversed. As some other comments mentioned, you would update the database throughout time rather than modifying the original entry. So you could still trace it back. I saw some comments about witness protection programs and trans protection. And I think that would come down to data management with things like fully homomorphic encryption, allowing for checking whether something is valid, even an encrypted format without having to decrypt it and know the contents. So someone could tell you they exist and then they could point you to their entry on the blockchain and you can see that indeed they exist without knowing anything about them.
A simple test would be something like, I want to order a drink, so I go into a bar. I sit down and the bar person asks me for ID. I give them my entry on the blockchain, and then they check to make sure that the entry was created at least 21 years ago. Since I did not hand over my ID, they don’t know my name unless I give it to them. They don’t know my street address and other details that would be on a currently government issued ID.
By design nothing in the chain can be altered. But of course you could have a block indicating “person X is now person Y”. But you can always read that Y was at some point X (and at what point the change happened). That would not be good, as it would be a public ledger of all trans people. It would also make things like witness protection impossible because inserting a block “today in 2024, person W was born in 1974” is very suspicious
Back when “cloud computing” was the latest buzzword, I had the same feeling that I have about LLMs now: Sure, it’s neat and has many uses… but it doesn’t solve everything.
It’s worth noting that I had the same feeling about block-chain, but I still don’t know about a practical use cases for a public write-only database.
I can give you one really quickly, birth and death certificates, which would establish, based on history, exactly where you were born and when you died, so you could always prove your identity by saying, hey, look here, it’s available globally.
But the accuracy of this information would still depend on external institutions or persons that you have to trust, right? I have admittedly never dived too deep into the whole block chain topic, but that seems to go against the underlying idea.
I mean, if it’s the blockchain, I assume that you’re trusting the parents who would register their child when they were born, since the child can’t really register themselves. My thought would be maybe due on-chain signatures for the parents saying that their child was born and then some number of family friends who also physically see the child and can verify that they exist would also sign.
until i pay a doctor in some rogue country $200 to put me in the system as dead when i’m not
I mean I can’t personally see why you would wish to do this because if you were reported to be dead then you would be a non-person and therefore would not be eligible for things like the Geneva Convention or basic human rights because you don’t exist. So, like, in that case, if I killed you, it wouldn’t be murder because you were already dead.
You managed to learn about block chain and the internet but not faking your own death and stealing an identity?
it stresses me out that techbros exist out there who are this clueless about the space they’re trying to revolutionize
I’m not trying to revolutionize this space. Other people are, but I’m not one of them. I was using it as an example.
Alright, I’m going to be a real pain in the arse here and throw some edge cases at that idea - not because I’m trying to be a cockwaffle (I can manage that all by myself), but trying to straighten out my understanding of these things…
In short, what criteria does the data have to meet to make it immutable, and can that be changed in future?
Birth certificates are brilliant for establishing time dates and places, but what if someone changes their name or gender partway through life? Is there a function to amend the original blockchain entry, or is a new one created that supersedes an old entry in the ledger?
These are actually very good questions. As far as when it’s immutable, that’s almost immediately because of the hash power of the network. After about 60 minutes, you can really trust that it cannot be reversed. As some other comments mentioned, you would update the database throughout time rather than modifying the original entry. So you could still trace it back. I saw some comments about witness protection programs and trans protection. And I think that would come down to data management with things like fully homomorphic encryption, allowing for checking whether something is valid, even an encrypted format without having to decrypt it and know the contents. So someone could tell you they exist and then they could point you to their entry on the blockchain and you can see that indeed they exist without knowing anything about them.
A simple test would be something like, I want to order a drink, so I go into a bar. I sit down and the bar person asks me for ID. I give them my entry on the blockchain, and then they check to make sure that the entry was created at least 21 years ago. Since I did not hand over my ID, they don’t know my name unless I give it to them. They don’t know my street address and other details that would be on a currently government issued ID.
That’s really cool, thank you for the explanation and example!
revolutionizing the underage drinking industry
literally all they need now is a qr code
they can even all share the same one
By design nothing in the chain can be altered. But of course you could have a block indicating “person X is now person Y”. But you can always read that Y was at some point X (and at what point the change happened). That would not be good, as it would be a public ledger of all trans people. It would also make things like witness protection impossible because inserting a block “today in 2024, person W was born in 1974” is very suspicious
Awesome, thank you for the insight!
Same with corrections.
Write-only meaning it can’t be read…?
Ye, it’s just a fancy
/dev/nullas a servicehttps://devnull-as-a-service.com/
They probably meant append-only meaning existing entries can’t be changed (for some value of “can’t”).