Homework on Provenance - Questions

Blockchain and Bitcoin 101
#1296

  • Provenance is defined as “information about the creation, chain of custody, modification or influences pertaining to an artifact”

  • Blockchain provides a robust system to trace origin, certifying authenticity, tracking custody and verifying integrity of products

  • Blockchain is a decentralized network, where transaction of data, goods an services are recorded and secured. The power over the data is distributed over the participant. The network history is available for everyone.
  • A normal database does not have the same transparency. The data on a centralized database can be modified by a central entity.
  • Real time auditing
  • The transparency gains the trust of the customer
#1297
  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    • It allows you to track the history of an item. For example, you could track a particular ingredient from beginning to end using a blockchain.
  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    • A normal database requires you to trust the owner/creator of the database. Using a blockchain, you are able to trust the blockchain and verify things for yourself.
  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    • It would allow you to store more information about the transaction. It would allow you to link the accounting and transacting aspects of business together in the same place which would allow for quicker audits, more accurate accounting, and a higher degree of accuracy.
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#1298

  1. All nodes (computers with a own copy of the blockchain) have to confirm every transaction. To the blockchain you only can add information; you can not remove information.

  2. A normal database is not controlled through a network consensus. In a normal database it is easy to copy and change or remove information; that is not possible on the blockchain.

  3. Digital provenance is such a great benefit to many businesses because it is no longer necessary to trust what for example the manufacturer tells you - you can check for example the ingredients of food (or clothes) through the blockchain.

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#1299

  1. It is a public ledger for all to see. You cannot remove data, only add.

  2. Can be edited.

  3. No trust required. Realtime auditing of transactions, goods, ingredients, etc.

#1300

1.Every transaction is registred on the blockchain and can never be erased. Therefore you enabe to track the previously transactions of the money.

2.This system is basically based on trustness. You trust that the products you want to buy is exactly what you expected. Eventhough you couldn´t check it. Since this system is based on trust and controlled by central authorities and bank, data can be removed without you knowing and unable to check.

  1. Costumers and other different users will have the benefit of being able to verify and make sure that the products are as expected through checking the ledger.
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#1301

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    Because the decentralized public ledger we can verify the data. Since we can not change anything on the ledger once consensus happend, we can trace the data and verify that data.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    A normal database is most of the time centralized and will bring up the question if we can trust the issuer of that data. Who is to say that there is not been tempered with this data?

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    The benefits are safety, tracing in real time, no trust needed, auditing cost go down.

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#1302

  1. Blockchain enables digital provenance by storing data (in this case, the origin or earliest known history of something) in the blockchain ledger as inputted by ex. the seller of an ingredient to a food manufacturer. This way, unless an ingredient is purchases from a different seller, end user buyers will always know where exactly that specific ingredient came from. Data to be inputted on the ledger can also include the condition that particular ingredient was in when received by the manufacturer.

  2. Normal Database may not be able to bring in the same provenance because of the fundamental function of the blockchain ledger - data can be added but not removed. In any other database, I am assuming data inputted can be altered in ways that can distort said data raising the issue of trust. In a blockchain ledger, data inputted will always be verified by the other local ledgers with the same data history.

  3. Digital provenance can be beneficial to many businesses because people want to know and trust where their products are coming from. In the food industry for example, this could change the way we certify products to be USDA ORGANIC. Instead of having a person go to a food processing plant and go through a check list to see if the plant is actually going through the appropriate protocols in preparation, feeding etc this information can be put on a blockchain to verify that this plant is indeed following the correct protocols.

Questions:

  1. are my answers correct
  2. how do we know that the data being put in the ledger is indeed accurate?
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#1303

1.

  • Firstly, Blockchain can be thought of as a digital rune stone, once the runes are carved onto the stone, it is essentially impossible to remove the information, it is sealed and immutable.
  • Secondly, these digital stones or blocks are distributed on a worldwide network which means that every node on the network has a real time copy of the block and that all blocks are verified by every node, making it impossible to tamper with the information of that block as it will not match with the rest of the network.
  • Thirdly, the ledger is publicly available and therefore transparent for all to see, nothing can be hidden, no need for anyone to trust, they can verify for themselves.

2.

  • A normal database does not have to be publicly available, it may often be centralized on a small intranet allowing limited access. It may also be prone to mutablility.

3.
Digital provenance allows real time auditing which makes it easy for businesses to perform accounting and transactions at the same time. Companies might be able to remove the need for expensive and time consuming audits that are held once or twice a year. Rather they would be accountable and audited on a far more frequent level which could make them more efficient and compliant (should the requirements lean toward such).

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#1304

  1. Blockchain is an immutable ledger that provides an un-editable history of transactions.

  2. In a normal database the records can be edited by anyone who has access to the records and is therefore editable and not immutable.

  3. Digital provenance makes the auditing process a lot easier and customers will be happier to trade with the business knowing the history of its products.

#1305

1: By having the information public and unchangeable it enables full transparency and thus digital provenance

2: A normal database is usually owned by a company which makes them able to control (change/delete) records.

3: It will enable you to track where something is coming from. An example could be H&M that produces clothes. In this case you would be able to track where the clothes came from and if it came from child laboring it would be a very bad image for H&M. This means companies wouldn’t deal with illegal/dehumanizing programs.

#1306

  1. Blockchain is a public distributed immutable ledger. Once an information is stored in a block it cannot be deleted or changed by anyone anymore (unless you have >50% of the computing power I guess). That means I can have trust in the information stored in the blockchain

  2. Other databases are not immutable and distributed. You need to have a centralized institution to keep information correct and in a save place. Everyone has to have trust into that organization and the information provided/stored by this institution (bank or company or whatever). There is no good way of preventing anyone of changing information in his or her favor, if the database would be public.

  3. I see a great benefit in the verification of information. This “don’t trust - verify” is terrible in personal relationship but would be a huge benefit for businesses. I actually see monetization potential for companies being the first to 100% verify where their products are coming from and improving their brand image by being super trustworthy.
    It also could save companies costs if they don’t have to pay for Auditors real money every year.

#1307
  1. By requiring confirmation by many decentralised parties as well as public transparency to these transactions.
  2. A normal database is centralised and not required to be verified by other parties
  3. Removing the need for trust will allow for decisions and transactions to be completed more efficiently as well as layering other capabilities such as accounting etc.
#1308
  1. Once data is registered on the blockchain it can not be changed.
  2. Because it is mutable.
  3. Because everything is tracked and is verified.
#1309

  1. Blockchain data can only be added, never deleted. Each transaction can be traced back to its origin.

  2. Normal databases have a central authority and can be altered at will. Just like the food example you gave in the lecture, how will a restaurant know what is in their food shipment and how can the consumer be sure if something is truly “organic” or “grass-fed” beef.

3.I combined a bit of this answer in my question 2 response. We are trusting the labels on products are actually correct. Using my company as an example, we pay Pricewaterhouse Coopers a lot of money every year to come to the office and audit our books. We can completely forego this with the tracked and real time auditing that blockchain comes to offer.

#1310
  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    Because it is a public ledger that allows referance to the origin of a transaction. All transactions are permanent and can be traced and therefore can be audited in real-time
  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance? because in a normal database transactions are separate from the data and are verified separately/cannot be audited realtime
  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses? Because it takes out the element of trust and allows information to be verified without a 3rd party
#1311

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    It enable digital provenance by providing real-time auditing and complete accuracy of data by storing every piece of information on an open distributed ledger.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    Normal databases doesn’t bring the same provenance because they allow future editing such as adding, deleting, or modifying data. Whereas, blockchain is completely unchangeable.

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    Digital provenance is a great benefit to companies because it can save a lot of time and money on professional services such as taxation, accounting, and legal engagements with other entities. It also enables the creation of new layers of customer satisfaction by providing useful information to customers regarding the products they purchase.

#1312

Blockchain provides a database that can add records, can never be removed and manipulated once recorded, be public to anyone and is traceable and auditable to everyone with an internet connection.

Normal databases is usually kept physically private or partially public controlled by the entity that owns it, is manipulable/destroyable behind closed doors, usually audited by a few select groups certified to provide the audit, and requires massive amount of trust by the people using flawed and inefficient regulations, legislations, and policing by a few trustworthy authorities.

Businesses can leverage on computing to automate accounting and transactions in one public open-source blockchain that is verifiable proven mathematically to be extremely secure and reliable in keeping records. This trustless system that is already verified to work saves time for bookkeeping and auditing, saves money against expensive accounting/auditing/tracing services, and improves trust with their customers by providing an intermediary system that removes trust layers from the system.

#1313

How does blockchain enable digital provenance? - with an open / public ledger
Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance? - is not open to everybody
Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses? - You don’t need to trust

#1314

I assume that if a company wants to send out their food they would want to be honest. They can always lie, but I think eventually everyone will figure out they lied in the first place. Interesting question.

#1315

Wow. So much detail and work in just one homework. :open_mouth: Keep it up. You are on :fire: :fire: :fire: