Blockchain: the unhackable ledger transforming transactions

Blockchain first attracted attention almost ten years ago when bitcoin was first released. The relationship that started in 2009 has grown exponentially as cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and others have flourished. What’s the connection between bitcoin, the cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology? The simplest explanation is that blockchain is the technology underpinning a unique international electronic cash system (whose creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, still remains unknown). Also think of blockchain as a completely decentralized electronic ledger in which entries cannot be changed or altered in any way. 

Blockchain isn’t just a single technology. Rather it’s an architecture—a radical, decentralized departure from business and financial systems of all kinds. It creates an unchangeable record of transactions that can only be updated by consensus between participants in the system. New data entered can never be erased. It is an unprecedented peer-to-peer network operated on servers that can be managed autonomously to exchange information between parties—with no need for an administrator. Blockchain as a network constitutes the “administrator.” 

This game-changing electronic ledger and transactional tool is at once both disruptive and immensely valuable for managing contracts, transactions and records across national boundaries, political, economic, legal, and currency systems. Blockchain provides the antithesis of control by any central organization. Bitcoin’s blockchain transactions, for example, are not controlled by any central bank. Instead, in a complex, almost sci-fi scenario, bitcoin-blockchain is maintained (rather than “controlled”) by a network of individuals that, adding to its mystique, are called “miners” or “nodes.” 

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The Blockchain and Us is the first documentary film about blockchain. We found it useful in understanding the impact blockchain is having all over the world in every sector of life, not just with Bitcoin. This award-winning film has screened internationally, including in Davos at the World Economic Forum, in Vienna at the Open Everything Film Festival (winner of best documentary short), in Melbourne at the Transitions Film Festival, in Amsterdam at the Fraude Film Festival, in London at the Everyman Theatre and at Coinscrum, in Minneapolis at the Analytics and Financial Innovation Conference (AXFI), in Zurich at Tech Tuesday, and in Tokyo at the Swiss Chamber of Commerce an Industry in Japan (SCCIJ). The film has been translated in Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese.

Talk to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Think, by James Vlahos

In his book “Talk to Me,” Vlahos addresses the economic, cultural and psychological impact of voice-driven artificial intelligence and the personalization of AI-infused conversation with Siri, Alexa and other talking assistants, and appliances controlled by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and, most importantly, Amazon.

Think back to the time, not that long ago, when we mostly interacted with computer technology by touch. Think about people today and in the future not only seeking information from their internet-enabled devices but companionship, camaraderie, and advice for everything from shopping and child-rearing to feeding and comforting dogs.

Vlahos asks which companies today and in the future are most likely to benefit and profit from these trends? Even though the most obvious answer today seems to be Amazon and its Alexa, he’s well aware that companies with countless engineers supplied with vast amounts of investment capital are feverishly at work on machine-learning systems that enable computers to amass and utilize enormous amounts of data, provide voice answers to every kind of question and, at the same time, even offer compassionate responses to our troubling emotions and other thoughts.

What we do know is that voice-computing devices will increase our addiction to all things digital and also risks to our privacy. Before the end of Talk to Me, however, readers probably will be most enthralled by Vlahos’ story of creating “Dadbot,” an all-text chatbot to enable him to converse—forever—with his father, who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Recording his father speaking on every topic of his interests and passions, he gave his father “digital immortality.”

Written by a superb writer who understands how technology really works, reading Talk to Me is essential for anyone who wants to learn about how voice computing will reshape the way humans interact with intelligent machines. He provides an abundance of relevant historical context so that we all can understand how conversational AI is causing a profound paradigm shift in the way we use and experience technology. Best of all, the book is quite enjoyable to read.

Hardly a day goes by without at least a half-dozen announcements worldwide of multi-million-dollar investments in tech startups by venture-capital enterprises and funds. Sometimes the investments are huge, like SoftBank’s Vision Fund, with billions invested in “market-leading, tech-enabled growth companies” aimed at fueling, and benefiting from, the AI revolution. With much fanfare, SoftBank’s Vision Fund was launched in 2017 by the renowned billionaire, Masayoshi Son. A year earlier, without any fanfare whatsoever, and with totally different goals, Sheeza Shah started a crowdfunding platform, UpEffect, to serve the needs of social enterprises “dedicated to making the world a better place to live in.”

As the VisionFund, now with Microsoft and Apple as partners, launches its next $100 billion round of fund-raising and tech investments, Sheeza can look back on successfully raising about $250,000 through crowdfunding campaigns for investments in startups “driven not by how much money they can make, but how many lives they can impact.” As a volunteer in charitable ventures, Sheeza learned that relief efforts frequently masked rather than solved problems. Success required strategic and impact-based investments aimed at transformative change.

Crowdfunding operates largely under the radar to assist entrepreneurs to build enterprises that use tech for social good. Sheeza learned lessons over the last few years of crowdfunded investing that can be inspirational for St. James Faith Lab: changing the world to achieve the goal of social good requires persistence, nurturing ideas, and collaborative relationships among dedicated people, as well as providing incubator-like assistance every step of the way, seeking informed advice and feedback, and managing expectations. 

“It brings us so much joy to see the transformational journey of the entrepreneurs that we work with every day,” says Sheeza. “Witnessing an idea converted into a successful business and making a real impact in a community is incredibly satisfying.”

Read more about Sheeza and her UpEffect organization here. 

By ARNOLD SCHUCHTER, St. James Faith Lab Tech Editor

Once upon a time, not long ago, says the TechnoFairyGodmother, ordinary people and businesses saved their data in the cloud. Cloud storage was trusted, without even much thought or anxiety. No longer. The news media is daily full of stories about misuse of our data. With every keystroke, click, search, like, and more, our personal data is either being hacked or else collected and sold. Facebook is only one huge culprit but, when Facebook builds a tool to fight disinformation that spreads disinformation and promotes corporate responsibility by lying, instead, none of us is reassured that our digital information and identities are safe.  

But now, my children, we have blockchain technology. With all of its advantages, for those fortunate enough to understand them, one day blockchain might make cloud storage obsolete. Over the rainbow, users’ personal identity will become as safe as it can possibly get. However, that day may not arrive soon enough for most ordinary mortals. In fact, one tech startup has concluded that the best way to prevent data from being stolen is to not have it at all—their software plus blockchain hides a user’s identity in ways that even your mischievous techno-whizkids couldn’t possibly figure out. 

This software and its connection to blockchain is worth explaining briefly, if only to illustrate the technical razzmatazz required to make your information and identity safe from cyberthieves. You put your identity (everything that identifies you) in a secure identity app. A “trusted third party” (???) verifies that you are who you say you are, but does not keep any copies of your identity. Your identity is then “hashed”: turned into code, encrypted, and stored on a blockchain.  

Lo and behold, your digital identity doesn’t exist anymore—it can’t be stolen or misused! Rest assured, my pretties, blockchain can prove that you actually exist, have a passport that is valid, or health insurance, or some other type of required ID. (When, for example, you want to become a parishioner in a church, you can confirm your identity with blockchain, but you never have to show your data to anyone—nobody can use it against you, or copy it, trace it, or misuse it in any way.) Glory be! 

Ever since it first appeared, blockchain technology has been connected with cryptocurrencies and almost synonymous with Bitcoin. However, blockchain is an evolving technology that seems to be something new every day. However, blockchain continues to basically work in the same way by using mathematical and cryptographical security, keeping your data safe across numerous servers that are all independent and, within these servers, your data is divided into different portions so that each of them only carries a fragment of data. Using blockchain, these parts of data are tracked and reassembled when the need arises. Your chunks of data won't be endangered even if the server is attacked because all that attackers would get is useless data fragments. 

What if blockchain enabled everyone to not only protect their data from use by Facebook, Google, Amazon and other companies for ad targeting, training artificial intelligence and other purposes but to capitalize on it for their own benefit? This question may arise in Congressional hearings on action that the federal government should take on Big Tech’s abuse of personal data privacy. Questions not only will arise about consumers’ ownership rights to their data, but also about their rights—perhaps using blockchain—to gather and sell their own privacy-protected personal data and, in the process, earn cryptocurrency. Hearings in Washington might include discussion of this rather radical idea when research is presented on the potential dollar value for consumers of their personal data, which today is mainly earned by Big Tech companies. 

No one, including some of the foremost experts in the crypto community, really has offered a credible guess as to where blockchain, cryptocurrencies (including Facebook’s forthcoming Libra cryptocurrency) might be going in the context of the global financial services industry. Since the launch of Libra, the name blockchain suddenly has cropped up in the media. We’ve also witnessed a mixture of concern, distrust, excitement, wonderment, and distain in response to a discredited social-media giant deciding to create the world’s currency. In response to all of this crypto-talk, even the TechnoFairyGodmother might be accused of “smoking fairy dust,” making her case for a blockchain solution using ethereal charts that resemble maps of the outer galaxies. Tell the TechnoFairyGodmother your wish!