This specific instance grants assurance that neither Walmart or anyone in-between is tampering with the database.
We've had this discussion a billion times before on HN so I'll avoid a huge wall of text but it always boils down to the same conclusion: blockchains (as in bitcoin) are about being completely decentralized and trustless. It's an "and" not an "or", if you remove one of these imperatives they're completely pointless. Detecting tampering can be achieved trivially using public key cryptography and a good hash function.
So you're either saying that what IBM is doing is not a true blockchain or you're fine with anybody using PGP and sha256sum labeling their product as a blockchain. In the latter case it means that bittorent, linux package managers and Windows Updates qualify as "blockchains".
At any rate this is obviously a huge marketing ploy to get free advertising, like "web 2.0" or "cloud computing" before. The problem here is that pumping the "blockchain technology" also means pumping the entire ecosystem of cryptocurrencies which is 90% scams at this point.
You're completely right, but I want to point out something subtle that I almost missed. For something to be considered a blockchain, it does not have to be distributed (as you noted). There can be a centralized entity (Wal-Mart) controlling the blockchain, but like you said, a controlling entity takes away trust. Without trust, Wal-Mart can still verify any tampering, but the public would still have to trust that Wal-Mart is coming forward with any discrepancies.
The entire point of blockchain is trustless. Otherwise a walmart database would be fine.
I like this. I’ve worked in orgs where PKI meant identity and identity proofing and expensive certs. Blockchain changes the pki from “this public key is definitely prepend” to “this public key means the holder of the private key did it.” This is because the “blockchain” either does consensus or has an authority on that key’s action being appropriate.
So being able to use pgp and sha256 as appropriate is a good thing in my book. Could this be done without blockchain with smarter it policy? Yes. But it didn’t, and now there’s some way of formally structuring how non-authoritative identities can perform functions.
So breaking pki out of the authentication world is pretty useful for me.
I work on a product in this segment (food traceability) and from experience I expect walmart to encounter possible operational issues by adopting the complexity of the blockchain into their solution.
The first one is tech-literacy. Like the article says, and is usual in this segment, producers and distributors have to adhere to the program to continue to sell to walmart. Often they just see it as a burden and don't perceive any value add for them, so they resist using it as much as possible. Data input must be incredibly simple and fast (produce can't sit in stock for long). If there is some exotic problem regarding certificates, keys or anything more elaborate than filling simple forms, then the producer will not be able to move his product until it is resolved with risk of having his shipment returned.
Unless you do all the work to set up the client side of tech, which means generating all the keys for everyone (making the whole endeavor pointless), the UX will be a major obstacle.
It feels like we're arguing about semantics here. Non decentralised, cryptocurrency-less blockchains have existed since before Bitcoin and were just called databases, event stores, public logs, etc. The true innovation behind Bitcoin was its consensus mechanism (which requires both decentralisation and currency). I'd argue that technology which was well established prior to Bitcoin (e.g. a centralised tamper resistant database system) does not deserve to be called a "blockchain". Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the prevailing opinion.
Yes they do, or you could use a traditional database.
>This specific instance grants assurance that neither Walmart or anyone in-between is tampering with the database.
Except IBM. Hope no one at IBM is greedy... I wont hold my breath.