[Chapter-delegates] Blockchain and Food Tracability

Tue Oct 2 01:32:29 PDT 2018

This note from Sia is an interesting first hand snapshot of the sort of
challenges being faced by those responsible for blockchain governance in
the "real world".

David Vorick I've found to be a thoughtful exponent of blockchain usage.
The Sia project is one of a small portfolio of interesting and well
considered decentralised and distributed file storage services I have
been assessing / lurking for several years.

https://blog.sia.tech/sia-proof-of-work-reset-24b5ec439625

It's a good example of how underlying technology changes are forcing
direct interventions to keep a blockchain  governed within desired
parameters and how contentious and political such interventions are.

Christian

Christian de Larrinaga wrote:
> Johan I agree.
>
> Even Satoshi's bitcoin white paper has a flavour of the economists'
> standard let out clause when describing their latest theory "all things
> being equal ... then .." about the ability of the math to enforce trust
> in bitcoin.
>
> The problem for bitcoinists is similar to economists. Technology and its
> distribution and governance that the math rests on never remains equal.
> At least bitcoin as a protocol for inserting data into a database is inert.
>
> Other blockchains such as Ethereum introduced programability (so called
> turing complete languages) whose main characteristic is to escalate the
> probability of technical uncertainties at multiple layers in the
> protocols in influencing what gets inserted. Governance for such
> environments is very tricky particularly where the protocol environment
> makes the assumption that it is mathematically flawless when it comes to
> its self governance. Show me a forkless self governing blockchain
> anybody. Even those that have raised $50m or more in speculative funding
> have suffered massive consequences from systemic flaws leaving their
> operators facing existential questions such as whether to intervene to
> cancel transactions deemed fraudulent but in so doing admit that the
> self governance of the protocol by the protocol is not dependable.
>
> Traceability is hugely important and not just for food. It depends on
> very complex webs of trust, laws and enforcement and even cultural and
> educational capacity.
>
> The consequences of getting this wrong are serious.
>
> Sympathy and shared outrage with the family of poor Natasha
> Ednan-Laperouse, 15,died on a flight to Nice after buying a sandwich at
> Pret a Manger outlet at Heathrow Airport in 2016. The bread itself
> contained sesame seeds which were not labelled. In this instance the
> coroner found that Pret a Manager depended on an exception to labelling
> intended for small outlets making their own food on the premises
> allowing them to state ingredients orally rather than on packaging.
>
> report at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45679320
>
> This is an warning that data that is vital for life which is reliable
> and comprehensible end to end has to traverse many interests and domains
> with differing needs and priorities.
>
>
> Christian
>
>
>
> Johan Jörgensen wrote:
>> Trust is always needed before we can secure through technology. Bio
>> data plus identifier is probably where we’ll go. Trust plus an open
>> and general identifier system plus blockchain is probably a good
>> starting point. Blockchain on its own - as you point out John - is not
>> enough.
>>
>>
>> lör 29 sep. 2018 kl. 01:12 skrev Niran Beharry <nbeharrytt at gmail.com
>> <mailto:nbeharrytt at gmail.com>>:
>>
>>     There is a local system being deployed to do plant to bar (this is
>>     for tracking cocoa pods to final product)
>>     Niran
>>
>>     On Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 11:40 John Levine <isocmember at johnlevine.com
>>     <mailto:isocmember at johnlevine.com>> wrote:
>>
>>         In article
>>         <CAN7+85fyCw17jZX07Jn8Pi6DyU2Ai_u2sig1yEXKGqQcztxPVQ at mail.gmail.com
>>         <mailto:CAN7%2B85fyCw17jZX07Jn8Pi6DyU2Ai_u2sig1yEXKGqQcztxPVQ at mail.gmail.com>>
>>         you write:
>>         >-=-=-=-=-=-
>>         >-=-=-=-=-=-
>>         >
>>         >http://theinstitute.ieee.org/resources/standards/how-blockchain-technology-could-track-and-trace-food-from-farm-to-fork
>>         >
>>         >This is very interesting since its  US law to trace food that is
>>         >contaminated ie. E Coli etc  back to the actual farm
>>
>>         Tracing food is a dandy idea but this makes the usual blockchain
>>         enthusiast error of assuming that if it's on the blockchain it
>>         must be
>>         true.  Tagging the food and accurately identifying what each
>>         tag is
>>         attached to is the hard part, not sticking the tag IDs in a
>>         database.
>>
>>         All the tags in the world won't help if a sleazy packer can just
>>         put a tag for a clean field on produce from a dirty field.
>>
>>         R's,
>>         JOhn
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>> _______________
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>

-- 
Christian de Larrinaga