These Are Not the Apes You Are Looking For
If the funders, developers, and artists pushing NFTs and Web3 get their way, the media landscape will look very different from what it looks like now.
These Are Not the Apes You Are Looking For Read MoreTag: Blockchain Technology
A blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree, where data nodes are represented by leaves). Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a chain (compare linked list data structure), with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are irreversible in that, once they are recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks.
Blockchains are typically managed by a peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network for use as a public distributed ledger, where nodes collectively adhere to a consensus algorithm protocol to add and validate new transaction blocks. Although blockchain records are not unalterable, since blockchain forks are possible, blockchains may be considered secure by design and exemplify a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance.
A blockchain was created by a person (or group of people) using the name (or pseudonym) Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to serve as the public distributed ledger for bitcoin cryptocurrency transactions, based on previous work by Stuart Haber, W. Scott Stornetta, and Dave Bayer. The implementation of the blockchain within bitcoin made it the first digital currency to solve the double-spending problem without the need of a trusted authority or central server. The bitcoin design has inspired other applications and blockchains that are readable by the public and are widely used by cryptocurrencies. The blockchain may be considered a type of payment rail.
Private blockchains have been proposed for business use. Computerworld called the marketing of such privatized blockchains without a proper security model “snake oil”; however, others have argued that permissioned blockchains, if carefully designed, may be more decentralized and therefore more secure in practice than permissionless ones.
—Wikipedia, “Blockchain“
Blockchain Technology: What Is It Good For?
Trust is complicated. Blockchain technology does eliminate specific, narrow reliances on trust, but it also requires new assumptions that might be better or worse for specific use cases.
Blockchain Technology: What Is It Good For? Read More
WIRED25: Stories of People Who Are Racing to Save Us
Humanity is facing thorny problems on all fronts. These folks are working to solve them—and trying to avoid the unintended consequences this time.
WIRED25: Stories of People Who Are Racing to Save Us Read More
Access Controls and Healthcare Records: Who Owns the Data?
Communications of the ACM, July 2019
By CACM Staff
“RICHARD MCDONALD: Questions come up as to who actually owns those records, who looks after them, and who needs to have access to them.”
Access Controls and Healthcare Records: Who Owns the Data? Read More