The false reality of the blockchain
The easiest way to define a Blockchain is to call it a digital register. It is the technology born in 2009 that represents a data structure shared and guaranteed cryptographically. A tool that in practical and political terms can certify identity, goods and governance. Compared to a common paper register, it introduces the typical differences in the functioning of the digital and the network, including decentralization, the possibility of entering into distance contracts and doing without intermediaries. In addition of course to lower costs.
Blockchain technology enjoys a moment of great popularity and its uses are the same as those of a register: the ability to record verifiable information and therefore enter into agreements or contracts between entities and individuals.
Digital authentication does not originate with Blockchain, for example PGP encryption is able to produce a verifiable digital signature without intermediaries since the early 90s, but the difficulty of use has limited its diffusion. A digital certification system such as Certified Electronic Mail (Pec) instead uses an intermediary as a guarantee.
The documentary at the end of 2018: Alex Winter's "Trust Machine" already reveals from the title the impact and expectations that it could have on society and tells of its various uses. Unicef uses the blockchain to register refugees, assigning them an identity to be able to insert them into a new society without losing sight of them. The World Food Program in Jordan uses it in supermarkets to control the distribution of food by scanning the iris. In New York, the Brooklyn Microgrid project records the consumption of green electricity in an apartment building in order to improve the
distribution and avoid waste. In the field of copyright, the musicians Imogen Heap and Dj Gramatik, monitor the uses of their creations for the distribution of proceeds.
Technological innovation therefore is not the cryptocurrency, but it is the "machine of trust" that the press. A powerful and unregulated technology resulting from cryptography, which will take time to reveal its potential and which, thanks to the decentralization feature, can alter the power relationships of consolidated positions within the Trust: banks, institutions, insurance companies, market. For example by recording economic transactions without the need for a bank.
Other uses: the Telegram messaging service also uses the blockchain, as explained in the 2017 paper: Telegram Open Network by Nikolai Durov. Ethereum, born in 2015, is a generic use blockchain, both as a cryptocurrency and for the stipulation of contracts, a tool that can be used in all connected environments.
The great optimism in evaluating this new technology is moderated by the intervention of February 2019 by the American cryptographer Bruce Schneier who supports the work of Kevin Werbach in "Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust", of 2018. Starting from the consideration that trust is the social glue places the generation of trust in a framework composed of four elements: the moral or reputational system, two characteristics applicable in small communities. Intermediary capable of sanctioning the institutions and finally a security system capable of verification. The conclusions of the well-known security expert are clear: the Blockchain system is architecture, useful only for verification and therefore it is useless for the transmission of trust. Those who think otherwise confuse control with trust.
In addition, the blockchain is not unassailable: for example in January 2019, someone took control of the computer strength of Ethereum Classic (Etc) used it to rewrite the history of transactions, thus being able to spend the same coin twice. He twice used 88,500 tokens, equivalent to $ 500,000.
The consequences of misplaced IT trust can be disastrous and without return. A blockchain asks for trust in technology and in all the elements that compose it, from software to computers to the network, perhaps forgetting that they are built and operated by human beings.
Depending on what we mean by blockchain, this could fail as a tool of transmission of trust and prove to be only a marketing or control tool. Control seems to be the most economical solution for any form of governance that does not have the resources to invest in education or ability to lead. For example, an orchestra conductor does not control the musicians, but guides them. Introducing technical innovations in the context of consent without the population having the tools to judge or use them presents significant risks and the area where this is most visible is that of the automation of bureaucracy, especially in the legal and electronic voting fields.
For the moment, the blockchain will have to live with traditional registration systems in the development of a socio-technological system. John Gilmore, founder of Eff, used these words in precise reference to the Blockchain: "It is an ongoing experiment, we will see evolution and chaos".
