[Chapter-delegates] Blockchain and Food Tracability

[Walid AL-SAQAF]

Thanks Glenn for initiating this thread.

I personally think that there is a bit of confusion regarding the role of
blockchain when it comes to tracking the supply chain. As Vint Cerf
mentioned
<https://www.isoc-bsig.org/blockchain-technology-opportunities-africa/> at
the African Internet Summit a couple of years ago, the main
security/reliability concern is not in the internal mechanism of the
blockchain, but in the moving parts that communicate with it and that in
some cases require entering external data via *oracles*. While the dominant
blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin require having the responsibility
of ensuring the integrity of data on smart contract developers and the
projects built on top of them, some newer blockchain protocols include
oracle support as part of their internal design and purpose of existence.

The concern raised by John Levine regarding the possibility of entering
false information via oracles to the blockchain is indeed a serious concern
for such protocols that needs to be addressed before mass adoption is
possible since it brings back the need for trusting the
individuals/entities that enter the external data.

Here is a useful article on this oracle paradox facing such protocols:
https://hackernoon.com/the-middleman-of-trust-the-oracle-
paradox-and-five-protocols-that-can-bring-external-data-
into-the-df39b63e92ae

Sincerely,

Walid Al-Saqaf
ISOC-BSIG

On Sat, Sep 29, 2018 at 2:04 AM, Niran Beharry <nbeharrytt at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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> wrote:
>
>> In article <CAN7+85fyCw17jZX07Jn8Pi6DyU2Ai_u2sig1yEXKGqQcztxPVQ at mail.gm
>> ail.com> you write:
>> >-=-=-=-=-=-
>> >-=-=-=-=-=-
>> >
>> >http://theinstitute.ieee.org/resources/standards/how-blockc
>> hain-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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