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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

The key here is "verified". The only way a blockchain is more trustworthy than a regular centralized database is if the nodes are distributed across a large number of stakeholders, and there isn't a chance of anyone gaining control of a majority. That itself becomes impossible since they are using a single account owner (Walmart) on a single cloud provider (IBM).

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IBM's platform uses Hyperledger, linked somewhere below.

It has copy on its site stating it "allows multiple different parties to securely interact with the same universal source of truth."

I think the fact that IBM is running this, and not Walmart, is actually a plus. The suppliers don't have to worry about Walmart itself making data changes. Of course the details will vary, but I highly doubt the platform allows the account owner to unilaterally make changes to this source of truth. It's totally against the point of the project.

Having one party to run the system wouldn’t need a block chain, just transparency. Make the data public, available to everyone, with daily hashes of the data of the day combined with the hash from the previous day. Sign that hash+date to prove it has been computed by this central party alone. If the hash cannot be recomputed then there is proof the data has been tempered with. All other parties need to do is to download and store these daily hashes in case of a conflict.

But all of that would be vastly simpler with a central trusted third party.

Global supply chains involve a number of superpowers who are at proxy wars with each other and a vast number of countries of which the majority have deep corruption issues. Who do you designate as the trusted 3rd party?

A company that has no skin in the game and which business it is to be a trusted third party. One of the big audit companies would be my first thought. But there are many businesses that play this role (exchanges, clearing houses, etc).

At the end the job is technically quite simple. Maintaining a semi-public database. It's pretty black or white.

How do you account for rogue employees or hacks at the trusted 3rd party?

Equifax was a trusted 3rd party with no skin in the game.

Facebook was too (at least it was trusted by the west, the chinese never trusted it).

The same you prevent fraud in any industry, procedures, checks and controls. But at least that party has no incentive to fraud.

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