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The financial sector's enthusiasm for blockchain technology might be misplaced, according to a pair of Australian distributed computing experts.
The problem: if everyone in a consortium trusts each other, they don't need blockchains to protect themselves; if they don't, current blockchain protocols have a flaw that allows a bad actor to game the system.
The warning comes from CSIRO/Data61 researcher Vincent Gramoli, lead author of an arXiv paper describing what he and colleague Christopher Natoli call "The Balance Attack" (the name comes from one aspect of their attack, that it's deployed against subgroups of nodes with balanced mining power).
In the finance/banking context, Gramoli says the problem is that blockchains are probabilistic, but for something like an inter-bank transfer, you need determinism. If the system enters a state in which it can't guarantee all transactions, downtime is the best solution.
Gramoli told The Reg "if the assumptions are not met, users should get a message that 'the system is not available, please try again later'".
Source: The Register
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zinho on Tuesday January 17 2017, @05:40PM
It would do them well to stop with that childish stuff and be a bit more... plain.
I disagree. Too much of the media is fascinated with "gravitas", to the point of being unable to be playful or even properly mocking and derisive in their tone when appropriate. Carefully-scripted morning shows - feigning a human voice within carefully prescribed limits - are painful to watch.
I like the fact that El Reg manages to convey serious news without taking itself seriously, and doesn't mind taking a stand on issues by voicing opinions. The world could use more of that; I don't always agree with the opinions of the Reg writers, and I wish there were other voices out there for contrast.
I'm going to show my age and recommend you check out the Cluetrain Maniesto; [cluetrain.com] it's free, and as relevant today as it was when first published in 2000. relevant quote:
There's a new conversation between and among your market and your workers. It's making them smarter and it's enabling them to discover their human voices.
You have two choices. You can continue to lock yourself behind facile corporate words and happytalk brochures.
Or you can join the conversation.
The Register has allowed its writers to find their voices; this should be encouraged.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin