Isle of Man Trials First Government-Run Blockchain Project

[CoinCornerMolly]

http://www.coindesk.com/isle-of-man-trials-first-government-run-blockchain-project/

[dr.offher]

Oh, a government-run blockchain project!

Sounds wonderful, were it not completely anathema to everything the Bitcoin community stands for. </sarcasm>

[Lorenzo]

Oh, a government-run blockchain project!

Sounds wonderful, were it not completely anathema to everything the Bitcoin community stands for. </sarcasm>

It's not as simple as that. This project doesn't aim to be a fully-fledged currency and so it doesn't directly compete with Bitcoin or claim to be better than Bitcoin. It's just a way to use the blockchain idea to secure entries in a database.

The concept isn't exactly radical either although the CoinDesk article paints it as being such. Truth is, there isn't really that much of a reason for a centralized distributed database to use a blockchain. Which this thing is:

Williamson explained the network will be manned by three "validating" nodes within the department, though anyone can download its client.

When you take Bitcoin out of the blockchain, what you get is a decentralized (or centralized but distributed in this case) relational cluster database. The purpose of a blockchain is to allow you to interact with other nodes without requiring trust. For any other purpose that doesn't have this requirement, there are actually much more efficient alternatives.

Also as an aside, the official website for CREDITS (getcredits.io) makes my computer really, really slow.

[neoneros]

A project like that could easily be used as a more secure election database, with a limited and controled amount of miners/validating nodes a majority attack from the outside can be overcome and the limited amount of servers are easily monitored to ensure the safety of the election. counting votes would be easier for the database can do it in a few seconds.

[Carlton Banks]

A project like that could easily be used as a more secure election database, with a limited and controled amount of miners/validating nodes a majority attack from the outside can be overcome and the limited amount of servers are easily monitored to ensure the safety of the election. counting votes would be easier for the database can do it in a few seconds.

Make the mining/validating nodes open access and it works. Then, anyone voting could essentially count the votes and verify that each vote was cast by an eligible voter, all while preserving ballot secrecy. The best decider of the of how much hashing power an information system needs to be seen as credible is how much the users will pay, balanced against the attack volume they can expect given the information they are trying to assure. So it all depends on what you're voting on.

[yayayo]

When you take Bitcoin out of the blockchain, what you get is a decentralized (or centralized but distributed in this case) relational cluster database. The purpose of a blockchain is to allow you to interact with other nodes without requiring trust. For any other purpose that doesn't have this requirement, there are actually much more efficient alternatives.

Exactly.

It's weird watching everybody hopping on "blockchain technology" without even having a proper use case for it. It seems to me, that "blockchain" is the latest buzz word used by managers who don't have even the slightest expertise in its technological implications. But they want to feel smart and demand "blockchain technology" for any database...

What flabbergasts me as well are the various attempts of conceptually separating Bitcoin from "blockchain technology", while in fact the security of the blockchain totally depends on the financial incentive (= the value) of Bitcoin.

ya.ya.yo!

[LFC_Bitcoin]

The Isle of Man has been very positive & supportive of bitcoin in the past.
It's a very small island just off the British Isles.
They're very progressive & I've read a number of articles over the last 12-18 months hinting about them trying to implement bitcoin into their small island.
All news is positive guys.

This was last September - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11109256/Creating-a-Bitcoin-Island-just-off-the-English-coast.html

This was as recent as April 2015 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32394170


Well done Isle of Man!

[Meuh6879]

The Isle of Man has been very positive & supportive of bitcoin in the past.

the problem is that ... banks don't follow the people (like in india).
Isle of Man have already shutdown bitcoin activity because of unavailable bank to accept transfer for this (local) activity.