Homework on Provenance - Questions

  1. Blockchain enables digital provenance by providing an immutable record of information/events (transactions, authorizations, transport routes, legal compliances), basically any agreed states or truths about the world.

  2. A normal database relies on a centralised authority for its truth or verification. This is much more easily corrupted or changed than the immutable record provided by a public, open blockchain utilising cryptography and hash functions to establish consensus.

  3. Digital provenance is a great benefit to many businesses because: i) It lessens friction of transacting (eg, real-time auditing). ii) Allows for high standards of quality and ethical business practices
    iii) Allows for liquidity in supply chains in many industries.

  1. Blockchain enables digital provenance since you can only add data but not erase or change anything. It is a public ledger.
  2. In a database you can delete data.
  3. Digital provenance is a great benefit since it makes your company/product trustless - verified. Which is great for us consumers. But I wonder, there must be some resistance too this? It will be difficult with financial fraud, corruption etc etc…
  1. With a decentralized database that can only have data added and not removed it creates an environment where fraudulent transactions can not occur.

  2. A regular database from what I understand relies heavily on trust. In an environment like this, the temptation for manipulation of information becomes too much for humans to resist in bottom line businesses.

  3. When an businesses don’t have to prove their trustworthiness to a consumer, we get to live in a world where the actions speak louder than words. We can weed out companies making false claims regarding their products and only the companies providing quality products with quality ingredients will thrive. We get to eliminate the garbage because everything is public.

  1. Blockchain is a transparent, permissionless public ledger.

  2. Normal databases do not have the same level of transparency and security. Less accountability.

3.Businesses can benefit by being trustless and secure. Holding more parties accountable.

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    Blockchains keep information in an immutable way where information can only be added. This allows for a decentralized trustless system.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    Normal databases can be tampered with and therefore rely on trust.

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    In most industry, there are middle man. When companies buy and sell to each other they rely on trust. With a blockchain digital provenance can be verified.

  1. Blockchain technology’s nature as a public digital ledger allows real time auditing to take place. Real time auditing allows any parties participating in a transaction to track the chronology of any product of interest. An example of this would be purchasing a bike from a manufacturer. Through the use of a public ledger, the buyer can determine where each component of the bike came from.

  2. The difference between a regular database and blockchain is blockchain is decentralized and completely open to be viewed all parties.

  3. The necessity of trust would be removed from the relationship between businesses since everything could then be verified at all times.

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
  • Blockchain is immutable (you can add data but you cannot remove data), so if you have a system which adds some facts about your product to blockchain, e.g. origin, ingredients, history of your product is 100% trackable, so you can verify all recorded properties and you can trust them.
  1. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
  • any other databases can be centralized, or they have a feature to remove or change data in them
  1. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
  • you can simply rely on facts and you dont have to be afraid of being fooled by bad players in the market
  1. Blockchain promotes digital provenance through means of hosting data in a public ledger, allowing real-time auditing and verification.

  2. A normal database is hosted by a central node (authority) and thus doesn’t allow public verification.

  3. Digital provenance allows companies to increase consumer confidence and easily manage accounting responsibilities.

1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
The blockchain contains all transactions since the beginning, a copy of which is in the different nodes/computers. Transactions cannot be removed and everyone can verify and track them.

2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
A normal database is centralized and can be modified or hacked.

3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
It enables real time auditing or to track the provenance of ingredients in a supply chain to name just a few benefits.

  1. Every block is unique and cannot be tampered with, verified by nodes on a decentralised public ledger.

  2. A central authority in charge of data is slow and leaves room for manipulation and fraudulent activity.

§. It cuts out third parties thus saving time and money. It also encourage truthful behaviour.

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1- by making it public and accessible to anyone to see and verify.

2- because it’s centralized thus it can be controlled by the one who made it and he can for example add false data or information to the database or edit it and remove something that he doesn’t like for example. so in summery it can be easily manipulated.

3- because it brings customer satisfaction, in which the customer can easily verify that the information he’s given is correct. and for the dealer it’s great because it would also be easy for him to check his products and information through the blockchain.

  1. Blockchain enables digital provenance by allowing only entries and not allow removal of any entry made. This makes it easy to tack things back to their origin.
  2. A normal database doesn’t bring the same provenance because it is centralized and can easily be tampered with.
  3. Most businesses will benefit from digital provenance in terms of cost savings. No longer do businesses spend so much to higher overpriced consultants to confirm for them what they could easily verify on the blockchain.
  1. By using math and other different scientific methods. That is the blockchain on a decentralised network. Informant of trustlessness is achieved.

  2. Because it is centralised. That means that you are dependent on an organisation, company, government or authority. You trust them not to manipulate or cheat. And you hope that the database will not be destroyed.

  3. Nowadays many business don’t know what components are in their products or where they came from. It makes your business opaque. But true digital provenance you can as a business trace the whole supply chain. It will give the business for example an insight if the products has high or bad quality components from their suppliers. And where it came from. You don’t need just to trust your supplier.

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    Immutability - Data can be added to the blockchain, but cannot be removed or edited.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    Databases by nature allow for their contents to be amended and, whilst a company may ask that you trust them not to do so, there is no guarantee that they won’t put self interests above those of yours.

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?
    It can enable near real-time auditing and remove the need for third party auditing firms, thus reducing a business’ cost base.

  1. Blockchain enables Provenance verifying the work that has been done and removing the trust factor as it’s already built in.

  2. A normal database doesn’t work because it can it’s history can be changed.

  3. It’s great because it removes the time and effort to verify by buyers and consumers. It’ll bring a sense of trust for consumers as well

1 Tracks transaction
2 Its a real time snapshot of status of transaction
3 Trust in transaction

  1. Digital Provenance is enabled by the Blockchain by enabling tracking and traceability of all transactions, because it’s a one-way traffic.
  2. A normal database doesn’t bring the same provenance because of TRUST and control. Normal database is controlled by a central trusted authority and transactions can be tampered with by the same body controlling it.
  3. Digital Provenance is a great benefit to many businesses because it increases the confidence the customer now paces in the system to verify and get what they have been told they would get because they would have verified everything.

After switching from old website I choose to do this course again. Then noticed I did all the homework except this.

  1. How does blockchain enable digital provenance?
    The blockchain has visible always available immutable data. Except in the case of privacy coins which is bit more complicated. Software can pull data that has been confirmed by many other nodes to be correct. The legitimacy of all transactions is already proven by all other nodes. Information relevant to you just needs to be tabulated. The addresses that belong to you can be proven using cryptographic signature.

  2. Why doesn’t a normal database bring the same provenance?
    A normal database allows for deletion and editing of data. A blockchain can only be read and have new entries. A public blockchain takes this further using consensus rules to make sure a centralized party has not manipulated the data as it’s always third party confirm at various strengths of consensus. Not all blockchains are created equal.

  3. Why is digital provenance such a great benefit to many businesses?

    Real time auditing and ability to prove you got or lost money.

1 a fully decentralized ledger where only transactions can be added provides a public blockchain without authority where all transactions can be traced.
2 in a normal database tranasactions can be deleted or changed by a central party controling the database
3 digital provenance can add a lot of quality and tracebility to supplychains or improve operations in the accounting business where auditing is seperated from operations

  1. Every new block of data containing transactions is set in stone. The transaction is verified by every node, if it is abiding by the rules. Every transaction is unique, so it can be traced back to it’s origin (provenance). Every node operator can audit any transaction.

  2. A normal database is not set in stone, data can be added, deleted and edited by the operator. So an auditor has to make sure the facts stated in the database are true. Since an auditor is expensive and has to be trusted, not every transaction can be audited at all times. Customers and business partners have to trust the database and also the auditor. (Public) blockchains are trustless.

  3. Because Blockchains are trustless, verification, and auditing happens automatically, they are time-saving and cost-efficient. In addition to that, blockchains are much more secure and reliable than traditional databases. To summarize, blockchain promises to be a more sustainable and profitable alternative, especially in the long term.

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