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Comment by maccam94 | Hacker News Reader

Blockchains do nothing to make the source of information trustworthy, they can only prove the information was created before a particular point in time. You could doctor a photo/video and put it on the blockchain just as easily as a real photo. You would only be able to tell it's fake if the original version was added first (if there's an original to begin with). There's a fundamental analog hole[1] when connecting a digital system to the real world.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole

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If telemetry data hashes are regularly added to a blockchain, then we can be confident that the full-data set matches the hash at a later date, and are not purely dependant on the honesty of a proprietary manufacturer.

If there is a concern that the original data collected might be doctored... then this is valid, but also should be the focus of tests and legislation.

Ie,

  - Currently, speedometers are legally required to be within a certain tolerance and calibrated.
  - VW Diesel scandal, was discovered and hurt the manufacturer badly.

The argument that not using a blockchain for storing referential data because it might be dishonest data doesn't strengthen the argument that we should purely trust the vendor, it makes it weaker!

(That said, I think this is pre-optimising and using blockchain for this today is overkill... but long term, I could very much see this being a valid use-case)

I see, people imagine that Tesla would use a defeat device to put doctored logs prior the crash. However this would not work since the car can’t put logs that say that everything is fine and did everything right because people would notice that’s incorrect as soon as they compare it with the evidence collected on the crash site.

If the car was able to know what’s the right thing to do, it would not only put it into the logs but it would have prevented the crash by doing it(unless of course, Musk is a contract killer and the cars ar crashing intentionnaly with correctly pre-doctored logs).

That’s why I suggested to use a blockchain - to ensure that the logs are not modified post-mortem.

Follow your thought through: what prevents them rewriting an alternative blockchain history?

Why can't they apply that to digital signatures with timestamps? This is a solved problem for years. You could use the NSTB as a timestamping authority.

Walk me through your implementation and I will walk you through the blockchain implementation and see the strengths and weaknesses.

You're just an internet person triggered by a question, really unpleasant attitude btw. Very closed even to considering an exotic solution and angry as if I'm implementing the blockchain at this very moment, are you in your 50s by any chance? Or maybe personal problems or no sex for a prolonged period or something like that? Why Are you acting like such an unpleasant and rude person?

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