Ledgers: When would you even...?

Ledgers - When would you even…? Ricardo J. Méndez SAP
Inside Track Berlin, 2018 September 1st, 2018 / [email protected] @ArgesRic  https://mastodon.social/@ricardojmendez/

@argesric @samsungnext Ledgers: not just a fancy new database.

@argesric @samsungnext Here’s the plan… • Give a quick overview
of what they are, in case anyone’s not familiar; • Talk about what I see as the requirements for them to be worth it; • Give some counterpoints about trade-offs you are making.

Who am I?

@argesric @samsungnext About me Technical Director for Europe at Samsung
NEXT in Berlin. We partner with innovators and invest in forward-looking deep-tech companies. Tech guy. Started companies. Done consulting. Seen more gross tool mis-applications than I can remember. Hope I can save you all some time.

Now, a warning!

@argesric @samsungnext (*) #notAllBlockchains

@argesric @samsungnext (**) Contains Opinions

What are these things even…?

@argesric @samsungnext Distributed database.

@argesric @samsungnext Yeah. Cryptocurrencies. Again.

@argesric @samsungnext Also authentication. Also a vineyard.

Characteristics and/or Requirements

@argesric @samsungnext The system needs to… • Be distributed; •
Have an absence of trust; • Require consensus; • Demand disintermediation; • Keep track of provenance; • Be auditable.

@argesric @samsungnext #1 - Distributed

@argesric @samsungnext Distributed • Do you want to have data
spread across multiple servers? • Do you want to run queries faster? • Do you want some redundancy?

@argesric @samsungnext Those are all about you.

@argesric @samsungnext Management is still centralized.

@argesric @samsungnext Distributed organizationally.

@argesric @samsungnext #2 - Absence of trust

@argesric @samsungnext Systems have some implicit trust baked in.

@argesric @samsungnext We offset trust with recovery mechanisms.

@argesric @samsungnext Distributed ledgers don’t trust you.

@argesric @samsungnext #3 - Consensus

@argesric @samsungnext No ACL. Check Byzantine Fault Tolerance.

@argesric @samsungnext #4 - Disintermediation

@argesric @samsungnext Banks are intermediaries.

@argesric @samsungnext Validators are intermediaries.

@argesric @samsungnext Centralized APIs are intermediaries.

@argesric @samsungnext Distributed ledgers abhor intermediaries

@argesric @samsungnext Our system so far… • Everyone involved has
a copy of the data; • Everyone can try to write to the shared state of the world; • Every node involved agrees on if the change takes place or not.

@argesric @samsungnext #5 - Provenance

@argesric @samsungnext Provenance • A system where the data can
be out of our control, • Where we don't trust anyone who may be writing to it, • So we're going to need to design some mechanism to agree on the world's state, • And which almost refuses to live behind an API wall.

@argesric @samsungnext Ledgers are ideal for tracking provenance.

@argesric @samsungnext Ledgers are append- only logs.

@argesric @samsungnext Logs are crap at queryability.

@argesric @samsungnext #6 - Auditable

@argesric @samsungnext Wait… Isn’t that good?

@argesric @samsungnext Not very selective, though.

Why is this important?

@argesric @samsungnext The sales pitch • “Tool X has infinite
applications!” • “You get all this stuff for free!”

@argesric @samsungnext TANSTAAFL. You always pay for overhead.

Counterpoints and trade-offs

@argesric @samsungnext Counterpoints • Be distributed; • Have an absence
of trust; • Require consensus; • Demand disintermediation; • Keep track of provenance; • Be auditable. • Organizationally centralized; • Trust structure; • No need for consensus; • Trusted intermediaries; • Provenance alternatives; • Controlling sharing.

@argesric @samsungnext #1 - Organizationally centralized

@argesric @samsungnext #2 - Trust structure

@argesric @samsungnext #3 - No need for consensus

@argesric @samsungnext #4 - Trusted intermediaries

@argesric @samsungnext Identity - online and offline.

@argesric @samsungnext Identity online doesn’t need intermediaries.

@argesric @samsungnext Identity in the real world has intermediaries.

@argesric @samsungnext Is there an external point of trust?

@argesric @samsungnext #5 - Other approaches to provenance

@argesric @samsungnext It’s not about tech. It’s about actual use.

@argesric @samsungnext #6 - Controlling sharing

@argesric @samsungnext Assume everyone can read everything.

Summing up…

@argesric @samsungnext Need most or all of these? Great! Otherwise…

@argesric @samsungnext Thank you. Contact: [email protected] 

Ledgers: When would you even...?

Ledgers: When would you even...?

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