Homework on Provenance - Questions

  1. Transactions can be added to the blockchain but cannot be removed. Since the blockchain is decentralized, the blockchain itself cannot be taken down. This enables digital provenance.
  2. A normal database is not decentralized and transactions can be removed. Therefore you aren’t certain of the history of the transactions. You are relying on information provided by supplier without proof. You must trust the suppliers if you are using a normal database.
  3. Digital provenance makes it possible to track raw materials without needing to trust suppliers. Also, blockchain puts the accounting layer together with the transaction layer making real time auditing possible. These are great benefits to many businesses
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1.Blockchain is digital stone .it is database of network which can be read by anybody in the network.not control by governng body ,corporation so fully trasparent.

2.Normal Database is centralized .Record can be edited and deleted. while blockchain work as Ledger which provide real Audit. normal database control by single entity so information they are provide to us we have to turst rather than verifying while in blockchain everyone is verifying so no chance of cheating.

3.Because of Transparancy its having great benfit. there is no chance of editing and deletion so easy to trust. and its very fast method rather than tradition .reducing the cost of middle man so provide great benfit.

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  1. Blockchain allows digital provenance as every transaction is recorded on the blockchain that can be viewed by everyone and is not controlled by a central authority.

  2. A normal database is controlled by a central authority and may be recorded by one person therefore it is vulnerable to human error, corruption or bad actors can hack database and change something.

  3. Digital blockchain based provenance is superior as it allows for third partys to have maximum confidence in your data as many different individuals that may not even know each other need to verify each transaction.

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  1. Blockchain enables digital provenance by allowing to track the provenance of every transaction. Every transaction written on the blockchain cannot be changed or removed. Also it is open to the public so its easy to see the origin of the transaction.

  2. A normal database can be tampered with or destroyed or changed. A normal database works more on trust but the blockchain works by verifying.

  3. It provides a complete open book to understand the provenance, it is accurate, real time auditing, it is open for anyone too see.

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Hello someone can tell me if i covered everything …and if i right in everything

Homework on Provenance - Questions

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    This is because (if i understand this rigth) the Blockchain is “Digital Stone” you can read or track it, but you can not change anything. For that reason its completly reliable and you can always look up the perticilar transaction.
  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    This is because it is not Decentralized en there is always an authority who is able to fraud or even can delete things. Is this correct?
  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses? Because there is no need anymore to “Trust” persons or systems. It all is put up on the blockchain so anybody (a person of company) can verify all transactions, audits etc…

I hope these answers are right of maybe some feedback involved.

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1.Provenance is referring to the earliest known origin of something and digital provenance refers to earliest legitimizing documentation. Due to the unchangeable and decentralized intrinsic nature of blockchain, it is the most foolproof way to document digital provenance.

2.The centralized nature of a normal database makes it more prone to malicious activity internally as well as more vulnerable to external attacks or even just negligence.

3.Digital provenance can benefit businesses by using blockchain technology to create “smart contracts”, which are self-checking using coded logic. That way they can increase security, while possibly even decreasing cost since the security is automatic and intrinsic once the initial “smart contract” is set up.

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  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    The blockchain is a digital public ledger, not only it allows data to be stored for each ‘transaction’ but it is also traceable.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    Since the blockchain is decentralized, no one entity controls it. Also it is public and traceable.

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    For keeping tabs on any sequence of ‘transactions’, financial, supply chain, ownership, etc.

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  1. Blockchain ensures transparency and availability of verification at any time.
  2. In conventional databases, it is possible to both enter and delete information. It is not possible to delete ever entered data in the blockchain. conventional databases are centralized and can be destroyed and modified at the request of one person. In a blockchain, this is impossible because it is a network of computers that are not subordinate to each other.
  3. Digital provenance removes the possibility of cheating in processes that are usually based on trust.
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1: The ability to track transactions or any material is possible with BlockChain because the information stored in the database cannot be changed and is constantly being verified.
2: In a traditional database there is a lot of human interaction and manipulation of the information displayed.
3: Many businesses today are really reliant on trust, where the people receiving the service need to blindly trust the parts. With blockchain you don’t need to trust, you need to verify.

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Questions and Answers

How does blockchain enable digital provenance?

Digital provenance is defined as an unforgeable record of a digital objects chain of successive custody and sequence of operations performed on the object (Rangwala, 2014).

Based on this definition the primary concern is how blockchain makes the record (of custody and operations) unforgeable. The secondary concerns are how it maintains the record of successive custody and sequence of operations and how these records can be accessed.

Unforgeable

In order to forge a transaction every ledger on the block chain would need to accept a transaction that contains information that is fraudulent. The most obvious example would be a user moving a digital asset it does not own. As a result I will focus on the question how does a blockchain prevent a user from moving a digital asset it does not own.

One way a malicious 3rd party may attempt to get a fraudulent transaction into the blockchain would be to transact/move another entities digital assets. This is prevented by means of encryption the simplistic summary being as follows:

Before an entity can move its digital assets it needs to sign the transaction by means of a private key that only it has access to. If a movement is not signed by the owner of the asset the block chain will not accept the movement. If a fraudulent transaction is sent then this private key cannot have been used and as such the nodes securing the network will identify that the transaction is fraudulent.

Note that the system knows the “location” of every digital asset as it documented on the immutable ledger that each node has. As such no entity can fraudulently transact with another entities assets.

An alternative would be to create a fake digital asset and attempt to claim that it was genuine. In this case the malicious entity would actually own the asset however the asset itself would be fraudulent. The system would be able to identify this as it is knows the location of all the genuine digital assets in the network. As a result when the malicious entity attempts to enter the asset into the block chain it will be rejected as the block chain would be able to identify that it was not a genuine asset.

Record keeping

Whenever a transaction is accepted by the network a record of the details is created and stored on every ledger in the system. Once entered onto the ledger the details cannot be changed.

Access

The aforementioned ledger is publicly available so anyone can access and examine the ledger.

Summary

Given that an unforgeable record is kept of every movement of the digital asset and that record is readily accessible digital provenance is achieved.

Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?

The entries into the database are not verified by multiple sources (it is centralised). In other words there is only a single ledger and as such the centralised party can enter fraudulent transaction into the database.

The database could also allow changes to past transactions, may not record all past transactions, may not have the details of the location of all genuine assets, etc.

Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?

There are 2 main reasons; it allows a trustless economy and it provides irrefutable evidence of the details of past transactions.

Trustless Economy

A business receiving payment for its goods will know that the customer actually owns the asset it is paying with, without the need of confirming this through some centralised third party like a bank. This saves time, fees and the need for certain physical assets/infrastructure.

When a business receives goods or services it can determine the source and nature of those goods without having to trust anyone in its supply chain, thereby saving it time and money.

The businesses customers can determine the provenance of the goods it is selling and as such does not need to spend time or money developing a system to prove authenticity or other characteristics.

Irrefutable record

The business is able to query the entire supply chain in order to improve efficiency, etc. For example it can identify bottle necks or underperforming suppliers.

For the purposes of internal and external financial reporting the block chain provides irrefutable support for its financial statements which can be simply and quickly consolidated.

Depending on the blockchain the records stored could provide useful insights into its customers (data mining).

References

Rangwala, M. (2014). SECURE DIGITAL PROVENANCE: CHALLENGES AND A NEW DESIGN. Available at: https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/6051/thesis%20final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [Accessed 27 July 2021]

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  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    It allows data to be added to a decentralized public ledger irreversibly, not having the ability to remove data whatsoever. This brings so much more value and more efficiency to the process of real time auditing while making financial processes more efficient by putting the accounting layer together with the transactional layer.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    Unlike the immutable aspect of a decentralized public ledger, the ability to constantly change the dynamic of a normal database can be achieved by a centralized entity that has full access to the “normal database” allowing the centralized entity to potentially tamper with data whereas the blockchain allows for transparency when it comes to tracking data in real time by anybody in the public which adds the valued verifiable factor to provenance, rather than the current trust factor.

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    It brings a trustless decentralized network of computers simply run by math which means you don’t have to trust the process or individuals, rather being in an immediate position able to verify/audit every stage of the process instantaneously having an added benefit of not having to wait days for an outcome adding full transparency for the supplier and end consumer. Making the process more efficient and ethical due to being publicly auditable.

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  1. Blockchain enables digital provenance by keeping and storing every transaction on a group of decentralized computers (or Nodes)
    This transaction history can not be erased or edited.

  2. A normal database, such as one at IBM is controlled by a corporation and can be manipulated. Thus makes it a trust based data system.

  3. “Trust-less” Digital provenance is a huge breakthrough in the fact that validating any clam that one may make about a product or transaction is possible through blockchain if the blockchain system is implemented in that particular instance.

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Answer attempts:

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?

I.m.u. (in my understanding), by mathematically verifying it (through cryptography), both in financial transactions which are verified per se (just for the sake of clarity I’ll call these ‘type A transactions’: ex. sending btc), and in other kind of transactions (just for the sake of clarity I’ll call these ‘type B transactions’, ex in regards of food provenance) which are appended to the blockchain, thus can only be added but not subtracted to the public ledger.

(Sub-question 1) Further question arising (if someone could help me understanding :wink:
While it is clear to me that the ‘type A transactions’ (as defined above) are sort of self-executing and automatically reliable (as it is with a BTC transaction), it is still not clear to me how, from a practical standpoint, data appended to the blockchain in ‘type B transactions’ will enjoy the same amount of trustworthiness, given that there will still be a point in time when these data will have to be ‘uploaded’ (not technical word, I understand) by someone in the blockchain, stating ‘these apples are organic’. I see a discontinuity between offline and online with makes it in some way not totally trust-less in such case. Thank you.

  1. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?

I.m.u.: because it would be centralized, not based on a public and distributed ledger, and therefore not trust-less (in other words a normal database still needs trust).

  1. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?

(Imu) because it could make trust-less, virtually non modifiable (to the extent the specific related blockchain itself is not modifiable), transactions verifiable by anyone (perhaps by interacting with the IOT in the ‘apple example’ under “sub-question 1” -ex. a verificable video proving the lifecycle of the apples and the absence of chemical treatment-? ). Thank you and great to be here ! :smiley:

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  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    Blockchains record the original block that cannot be altered or purged, and the records are transparent for others to view
  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    Because normal databases can be updated or deleted so not trustworthy
  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    Trust, organizations do not need to trust the parties involved but rather trust the technology, making it trustworthy.
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  1. Transactions can be tracked and audited in real time.
    Thus, auditing will be changed forever.

  2. A normal does not bring the same provenance, because
    there is no transparency. With provenance every step of
    an operation can be traced. Operations such as food
    ingredients. 30 percent of ingredients in food are based solely on trust.

  3. Anything can be tracked with digital provenance. With this
    guarantee trust is fostered. As the moto goes “Don’t Trust, Verify”.
    With digital provenance anything can be verified.

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  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    Blockchain allows to track history (provenance) of the transactions. What was added to the blockchain cannot be removed anymore. It is also an open ledger and everybody has access to it.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    Because normal database can be removed or modified, the data can be lost, while with blockchain its impossible. Blockchain is much more convenient technology.

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    Because instead of trust we can quickly and efficiently verify everything we want to.

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  1. Blockchain enables digital provenance by allowing anybody to track any transaction.

  2. Due to normal databases being centralized, data can be deleted and tampered with.

  3. Digital Provenance ensures a trustless, transparent database.

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1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
By implementing a trustless method of accounting, blockchain enables digital provenance.

2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
A normal database doesn’t have the trustless feature that blockchain does so hence it must be audited, by an external third party.

3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
Digital provenance is great for many businesses because it enables accurate real time accounting / traceability of money / material goods (such as in a supply chain).

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  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
  • By verifying instead of trust
  1. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
  • Normal DBs can be manipulated by the owners.
  1. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
  • They dont have to only trust the other part. The can actually verify if things are as they suppose to. And not only rely on trus the other party.
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