The FT reports this morning that:
Accenture is courting controversy in the blockchain community by patenting a technique for editing information stored using the nascent technology in a move designed to make it more commercially viable.
By allowing a central administrator to amend or delete information stored on a blockchain, the consultancy says that its prototype – to be unveiled on Tuesday – will make the technology more attractive to the financial services industry.
The supposed advantages of the blockchain are that it is transparent and unalterable.
Accenture want to make it opaque and editable.
Now why would they want to do that, I wonder? Could it just be that the blockchain is being adjusted for tax haven usage where secrecy and a pretence that transactions take place in ways that do not reflect reality is normal? Is that what being more attractive to the financial services industry means? I know what the article says, but I can't help but wonder,
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Yesterday Ellen Brown sent me a copy of her latest report on Central Bank Digital Currencies. It seems that BoE has been giving the scheme serious thought.
The ability to alter the data by a third party does appear to undermine the whole principal though, as you suggest, Richard.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/57dc4884e4b0d5920b5b2ad8?timestamp=1474294978747
Call Mt. Gox. they will clarify all — if anybody ‘ s still answering the phone.
An amendable blockchain is an oxymoron. If Accenture wish to develop one for their record keeping which is editable, well, they may as well not bother at all and just store their records on chalked slates 🙂
Exactly as Bill Kruse says: the whole point of a blockchain is that the record is immutable.
Providing it’s properly designed, and properly implemented.
If there’s a secret key or ‘backdoor’ out there, it will be used: either by corrupt actors within the organisation that owns the key, or by the third party that discovers it.