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Some Nevada Governments Are Using Blockchain For Public Records (apnews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

Some northern Nevada counties are using blockchain, the online ledger best known for helping secure virtual currencies such as bitcoin, to store digital versions of government records like birth and marriage certificates. From a report: The Reno Gazette-Journal reports that as of December in Washoe County, about 950 couples had received secure digital marriage certificates to home computers and smartphones since the program debuted in April 2018. The newspaper found that Elko County is trying similar technology for certified digital birth certificates. Phil Dhingra at San Francisco-based Titan Seal said the Washoe County digital marriage certificate program uses the Ethereum blockchain because it has computing power that makes it hard to hack. He said he believes the number of digital certificates per year in the United States could at least match the billions of paper records that get a certificate or embossed seal of some kind.

11 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Energy by nwaack · · Score: 2

    Does it also use 1.21 jigawatts of power to pull up the record and send it to you?

    1. Re:Energy by mhesd · · Score: 2

      End of this year Ethereum switches to 'Proof of Stake' consensus which reduces the power consumption by 99% points. A protocol update next week starts the transition.

    2. Re: Energy by jythie · · Score: 3, Informative

      Keep in mind, one thing blockchains provide is a historical audit trail. Even if the single authorized writer can change values, all the previous inserts and changes are still examinable. This actually makes it a pretty good tool for public records since you can both see what currently is and what it looked like at every historical point.

    3. Re: Energy by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Informative

      The audit trail is provided by making the list public. You can make any list public and then anyone who has a copy can check whether you changed something.

      Hash trees/lists make integrity checking quicker, and revision a bit harder. If I want to change an earlier entry in a regular list I just do it. If I want to change an earlier entry in a hash list I have to recalculate and update the hashes from that point forward.

  2. Worst idea ever by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

    No reason to use a blockchain here. A blockchain is great because it is a public database without the need of a trusted entity. The tradeoff is, it is extremely inefficient.

    When you are issuing a birth certificate, you already have an entity that must be trusted to issue birth certificates (the state, and doctors). There is thus no benefit for putting that info in a blockchain, you might as well use a standard database.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Worst idea ever by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No reason to use a blockchain here. A blockchain is great because it is a public database without the need of a trusted entity.

      If you consider the government to be, and always remain, a "trusted entity", then you are correct. If you think that corruption is possible, and public records may be destroyed or altered someday, then a blockchain makes that more difficult.

      The tradeoff is, it is extremely inefficient.

      Blockchains are not inherently inefficient. Cryptocurrencies are designed to be inefficient to throttle the generation of new coins. But there is no reason for a county clerk to use the same algorithm.

    2. Re:Worst idea ever by Shaitan · · Score: 2

      Thousands of them, globally distributed, across third parties in a way that isn't predictable or centrally vulnerable. Which isn't specific to "blockchain" no but is part of the bitcoin decentralized package.

      Perhaps not as implemented here but ultimately the advantage is that other parties decide who they trust or not, not merely your own government. The records are highly resilient and publicly available without need to contact any government official or occupy their time making a request. The data is distributed, the processing is distributed. But if governments are going to use public blockchains they need to be mining on them to ensure nobody can reach 51% as a matter of national security.

    3. Re:Worst idea ever by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      it much more closely resembles git than a cryptocurrency and talking about it like it's based on the latter instead of the former is just talking in buzzwords.

      Blockchains are not "based" on cryptocurrencies. It is the other way around. Cryptocurrencies are based on blockchains, but they are not the only applications, and non-CC blockchains can have very different characteristics. The one thing they have in common is that "trust" is distributed.

      Comparing blockchains to git is a useful analogy, but there are significant differences. Git is designed to distribute content rather than "trust", commits can be spoofed, and there is no concept of resolving conflicting commits automatically.

  3. That was premeture by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Hard to hack"... well, ummm...apparently not...
    https://www.theverge.com/2019/...
    Additionally, there's hsitory:
    1- Parity Freeze Hack : 512K ETH
    2- Party multisig wallet Hack : 150K ETH solen
    3-The DAO hack: 15% of ALL in circulation stolen
    Stop calling this nonsense secure......

    1. Re:That was premeture by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Informative

      and 1 more nugget O fact..... a study last year found 0% success rate for ANY blockchain project.
      https://www.theregister.co.uk/...

  4. Re:Really? by sabbede · · Score: 2

    Poor planning.