The Goals of Blockchain: Trust and Security
What is Blockchain? Blockchain explained for non-coders
Blockchain is a way of recording that sequentially links every revision of a a record, in a distributed / shared log (or ledger for finance folks). Every transaction is recorded in an every growing record chain.
Featues of Blockchain Records
- decentralized digital record ledger
- data records (blocks) are tied together in time sequence
- any change to a record adds a new block
- nothing can be deleted or changed without a record as evidence
- “tamper proof”
- can be used for any kind of data
- distributed network – doesn’t reside on just one computer or desk
Security and Trust
Blockchain brings the promise of trusted data, and impossible…or very low probability of fakes. It can allow a person to own their own data and share it with the world as they choose. Panacea.
Code Is Opportunity
But this is code and electronics. There is always some relative weakness. Code is the realm of hacks.
Crypto hacks have shown that environments where blockchain are used are not unlike other things in the cyber world. Regardless of how trusted or secure a blockchain inidivudal record is, the the application or system it’s used in is vulnerable to the same old cybersecurity problems that befall everyone else.
Two main ways: stolen keys (the passwords), and exploiting bugs in code. Here are some expensive examples:
Where is Blockchain Used? Is it Here Yet?
Blockchain is being introduced in the background with the big insurers, banks, pharma, governments, etc. For most of us, we won’t see it or it won’t affect us for a while (some years). Blockchain is really only encoutered by most people who invest in or read about crypto currencies. What blockchain offers crypto is the distributed, trusted accounting that is needed when there is no central bank. It’s the perfect and obvious applicaiton for this new way of tracking transactions.
Healthcare Blockchain & How It’s Used
Blockchain methodology and application are still in the infancy stages for the healthcare industry as a whole. There is an ever increasing number of companies applying blockchain in different ways.
Some create trusted data share groups. These allow us patients – us individuals to own and control our personal medical history records. We can choose who we allow to view and add to our records. And they can’t be tampered with. That’s real power in the hands of the people.
Some healthcare blockchain companies and projects focus on the validation of drug history, DNA info, etc. This is similar to traceability that supply chains are generally concerned with. Knowing the history or the full life path of who touched an item from raw material and out and into the marketplace, is important for controlling quality, safety, and accountability for problems.
Other blockchain tech companies just create data network protocols (the code stuff) or hardware (like crypto currency wallets). These support products and services advance the practicality and usefulness of blockchain in healthcare.
Why Aren’t We All Using Blockchain?
What’s the Holdup? We need trusted, secure solutions today!
The Performance Problem
Blockchains also suffer from a capacity problem. That’s the reason one crypto currency has not really won out yet. Each transaction must be written somewhere. Therefore, the greatest strides have been done through supply chain. Once the object has been delivered, it can be archived or erased. Food is the one application that holds the greatest promise. A head of lettuce grown in a field can be tracked until sold. If a contamination is discovered, tracking to the field, within a farm, can be pulled out of the blockchain in an instant.
Cons for using blockchain are processing speed and resources needed. It can consume a lot of computing power to solve the complex cryptographic equations for validating a record to be added to a chain. For crypto currencies, this is one way you get paid – by “mining” or by computing a new record. It takes time, so fewer transactions per second and computing power and electrical power. Both cost money…real money. : )
Healthcare faces the same limits as currency. People live a long time. Each prescription, procedure, etc. must be kept for the life of the individual. The cloud is not limitless. Everything has a capacity.