A Couple of Thoughts Regarding some Recent Alarming Blockchain News

by

W. Paul Alexander

for

Better Call Paul

Hello everyone, and welcome back!  After some great responses that I received after writing about some of the negative aspects of mass adoption, I have been thinking in detail about what a world under mass surveillance, powered by blockchain technology, could mean for the masses of society -- the "you's" and "I's" of society -- those upon whose broken backs the powerful have built their empires.  

In particular, one project I read about is increasingly alarming -- the pilot programs being run by the Red Cross to "track aid" given in places like Kenya and other war-torn nations.  

This is not the first time that the Red Cross has utilized blockchain tech -- see here for details on previous programs. The stated purpose of the program is to keep track of aid payments, supplies, drugs, food, etc.. that the Red Cross distributes to those in need.  The tokens issued by the Red Cross are backed by government fiat and are equal to a specific amount of fiat at a fixed rate.  The people receiving aid payments can then go use the tokens as though they are local currencies without any hiccup, the same way one would use, say, a FEMA prepaid debit card, but with their tokens as the currency.  

Sounds great, right?  

That's the point, really -- it just sounds great.  

First and foremost, a program like this, while it may save on waste and fraud, also puts a name, face, and complete identity to people using the Red Cross's chain.  It is a centralized token as well.  Client information would be logged on the blockchain in increasing numbers and in great detail.  Money they spend at the grocery store on certain items will be wholly accessible to the Red Cross and the governments of the nations that they are doing business with.  Housing assistance payments made by the Red Cross would be on-chain, meaning that those in power could easily track and surveil the movements and activities of those receiving aid, including not only where they live, but all the way down to the minute details, such as what sort of toothpaste they bought with their aid debit card.  

It could even lead to an all-out "total informational awareness" scenario like I described in my other post on this topic, found by clicking here.

Now, I want to make sure that everyone understands why I am saying this.  People in disaster scenarios, whether it be war, famine, hurricane, earthquake, or wildfire, are vulnerable in ways that they never were before, and this makes it easier for governments and NGOs like the Red Cross to get them to surrender their privacy rights by agreeing to receive this much-needed aid in a manner that allows the agency to literally take a snapshot of their lives at any given time.  People in a position that they have lost everything as a result of natural or manmade disaster and who are in massive need of assistance payments will, more often than not, sign away and waive whatever privacy rights that do exist in order to receive their funds.  This means that this is a system that is absolutely rife with opportunities for the assistance-providing government or NGO to take complete advantage of this.  

I think that these sorts of programs, based on blockchain, will be widespread and commonplace very soon.  Thus, I do not want to mislead anyone into thinking that I am spreading the all-to-dreaded FUD.  I am not.  On the contrary, I believe that these types of programs are the vehicle through which we will see mass adoption of the blockchain -- not through bitcoin investing or cryptotrading on the exchanges -- but rather, will real-world use cases in sectors that could be completely and utterly transformed for the better by implementing blockchain.  I am a proponent of mass adoption, but I believe that this needs to be done responsibly, as we must do with all emerging tech.  

All we have to do to understand the pitfalls of mass adoption of new technology without first implementing boundaries for how far these companies can go is to look at what has happened with social media platforms, Facebook in particular.  The need to feel connected to people across states, nations, and continents allowed users to just "click-through" pages of Draconian and Orwellian terms of service that essentially gave Facebook the rights to track you, spy on you, punish you, limit your rights to free speech, and be policed at any time.  In fact, as any detective what the best technological tool in surveillance has been in the last 20 years, and they will undoubtedly say, without hesitation, "Facebook."  In the end, companies like Cambridge Analytica tool complete advantage of the waivers that we all agreed to in order to harvest our data and perform some pretty nasty psychological campaigns against us using tools that predict our behavior.  Now, Facebook's Libra token will bring mass surveillance to the blockchain as well, to the point that I believe that Libra is one of the most terrifying threats to global freedom that we have seen in a long, long time.  

Guys and gals and everyone in between, please hear my pleading!  We cannot afford to hand our data over the way that we did with social media.  We need to implement boundaries, perhaps by an independent blockchain standard (similar to the ISO standards in many industries) preventing the use of our data to track and surveil us on the blockchain.  It's that simple, really.  Those of us who are heavily investing (not just financially, but time, effort, blood, and sweat) in blockchain should band together and hold a summit where we agree on a set of protocols that blockchain projects must meet before receiving certification, starting with a "User Privacy Bill of Rights".  

Wonder how many of us will be willing to do the work to put something like this in place and in practice BEFORE governments and NGOs get heavily vested in blockchain tech for the purpose of doing exactly what I propose we stop from happening.  

Until next time... 

Deo Volente, 

W. Paul Alexander 

Cover Image Credit:  Technocracy News