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Ex-Google Engineer Launches Blockchain-Based System For Banks (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A former Google engineer, whose speech recognition software is used in more than a billion Android smartphones, has launched a company that uses blockchain technology to build a new operating system for banks. Paul Taylor, a Cambridge University academic with an expertise in artificial intelligence, speech synthesis and machine learning, started working on the system, called Vault OS, two years ago in a basement in London's Shoreditch district, known for being a tech start-up hub. The technology, which underpins the digital currency bitcoin, creates a shared database in which participants can trace every transaction ever made. The ledger is tamper-proof and transparent, meaning that transactions can be processed without the need for third-party verification. The system also negates the need for costly in-house data centers, as it uses cloud-based systems, which banks can use on a "pay-as-you-go" basis, which means that there is no single point of failure. Taylor said major high-street banks were spending around a billion pounds ($1.3 billion) a year on computer technology, much of which he said was being used for propping up the current "legacy" systems rather than on any innovative technology. The start-up has been working with about ten banks, Taylor said, at least one of which would be starting a trial using the new system in August. He expects the system to be up-and-running within about a year. In banking-related news, a Congressional report shows that China's spies hacked into computers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 2010 until 2013 and American government officials tried to cover it up.
Moderators suck. They mod up posts they agree with and mod down posts they disagree with. It's biased and leads to groupthink. There are also some very quick moderations of posts they disagree with, which looks a lot like censorship. Because most people read at 1, or at the lowest, 0, posts at -1 are effectively censored. This is a big problem and moderation is seriously prone to abuse.
We should just leave the industry to itself, and let them sort out how to do stuff. Why should I be interested in a company launching a product that twenty other companies offer as well, knowing that in five years maybe three will still be around.
The Blockchain revolution of the banking sector is very important, centralized trust systems are a descendant of the "mainframe" model of the past. But why treat each of these companies like a messiah. There are tons of them.
Jemima Kelly may not know what an operating system is but the submitter should.
Editors - please take a look at that summary and convert it into something that does not look so utterly stupid and ignorant.
I accept your challenge, nave! En garde!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So you've got this encrypted system that's kind of like a Usenet for transactions. I make a change locally, eventually it propagates across the world. The databases are on everyone's computers versus on several hundred servers like Usenet.
The "distributed ledger" is supposed to be the Next Big Thing. And I don't mean that with any sarcasm or negativity. But how well will it scale really, if the ledgers/databases are on people's computers instead of a network of several powerful servers connected by a fast backbone?
I'm a total tyro when it comes to the distributed ledger. I've never used Bitcoin. But it - the distributed ledger - seems hackable, with no recourse if you lose your stash. And its scalability seems limited.
The article is content-free and makes no sense, as so many of these articles do. It's also barely longer than the "summary". At least this one didn't fall victim to the usual tech reporting failure of saying the blockchain is public. Still, the magical blockchain does not eliminate $1.2 billion in expenses. Far from it. If anything, their hardware expenses will go up, because they have to devote hardware to hashing, where before, a financial transaction was a straight-forward database transaction. They still have to keep track of everything they keep track of now, plus hash. Now, they can control and explicitly cap the amount of hashing required to drive the system, since they're not limited to the Bitcoin implementation, but there still has to be work done, i.e. processing.
Here's the nonsensical part though:
The start-up has been working with about ten banks, Taylor said, at least one of which would be starting a trial using the new system in August.
At least one? You mean at least two. One bank doesn't need a blockchain at all. The controls required to prevent internal fraud are quite simple when you know everything there is to know about both sides of the transaction. It's when one party of the transaction has an account at a different bank that a blockchain comes in. The banks are hoping to disintermediate the Automated Clearing House (in the US) and the Pan-European Automated Clearing House (with the cutesy PE-ACH acronym). In practice, they're going to discover that sufficient hashing to secure 100 billion transactions per year (ACH+EPN+PE-ACH) is neither free nor even cheap. It remains to be seen if hashing expenses can be kept below ACH fees.
Seriously, folks, it's all about open hardware and software. It's about sharing, it's about being able to read the open source software and contribute if you can.
"Microsoft made the bold claim on Wednesday that its Edge browser was the only browser of the big four browsers -- Chrome, Firefox, and Opera -- to play Netflix content at a 1080p resolution."
IMO The whole "I'm the only guy in the world who can bring you X,Y,Z so suck my proprietary cock and btw don't look under the curtain!" is bullshit.
Oh, and, Microsoft, how's your "Moonlight" for Linux project coming along? Oh, that's right, it's dead, much like the "Rootkit Revealer" program which development was axed after being absorbed by the beast. How can you continue to offer it in stand alone and part of SysInternals suite? It's ancient! Why don't you actually restart development?
Do you even care?
Refuse to use Microsoft products. Demand a refund on a computer if you purchase it loaded with Windows.
Has Windows 10 been forced to install on your system without your permission? Did you know at least one person has sued and gained somewhere around ten grand? Think about that for a second...
Why the shit do you always reference other posts that are sitting on the front page, usually only one article below, from every fucking non-related story? This is the first one I've seen where you referenced something that someone other than yourself posted.
Stop with your attempted click driving shit.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Who wants a bank run by an Ex-Google / USA / Pentagon / CIA coalition in kahoots with Microsoft and Facebook?
Treason meets banking? gtfo
It mentions a blockchain AND cloud computing in one go. Who won at buzzword bingo on this one?
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
Here's a much better article explaining why fundamental issues with blockchains make them either unsuitable for banking or not much different than the current system of trusted third parties in a centralized permission system. Read this and beware of fintech cheerleaders spouting buzzword nonsense:
Will Blockchain Change Wall Street? The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
Nihil sub sole novum
I wonder who's gonna be the smart cookie that uses something like AWS to spin up a few thousand micro instances, installs the banking client on them and then uses their 50.00001% influence to transaction all the currency into their accounts..
He added "hacked" at the end for no discernible reason.
> participants can trace every transaction ever made
All the more reason to keep using Cash ! I don't want my wife knowing that I finish work early and go to the pub for an hour every evening.
Maybe if /. had a general discussion channel, we wouldn't need to come hijack the other threads. Maybe you should stop being so anal about the board rules and what you feel is offtopic. Give me some place else to bitch on this site if you don't want to hear me.
it's just the usual propaganda and BS that this BeauHD feels obligated to propagate here on Slashdot.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll go for that and risk crippling fines if any of that data is compromised or even going out of business the "cloud" goes down and all transactions grind to a halt.
"Paul Taylor, a Cambridge University academic"
Says it all really. Very smart but little real world business experience and no common sense.
"The system also negates the need for costly in-house data centers, as it uses cloud-based systems, which banks can use on a "pay-as-you-go" basis, which means that there is no single point of failure. "
Which means you don't own your data, which means you can't change or migrate without being gouged if you are dissatisfied with the services.
Not that old mainframe stuff isn't useful, but let's leverage something modern for the next 50 years of computing and banking.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Blockchains will be used for tracking YOUR transactions, but not the Banks.