Is Blockchain's Transparency The Missing Link To Improving Data Security?
In technology, as in life, sometimes the best way to understand a situation is to ask the right questions. Sometimes it's the nature of the question, as much as the answer, that reveals the truth. This is one of the underlying tenets of how we can start to rethink privacy and security in our digital lives, and it is a fundamental reason why blockchain could help shape and redefine privacy and security moving forward.
While blockchain is often associated with cryptocurrencies such as the now-famous bitcoin, its impact goes well beyond the financial world. As the CEO of a company that conducts research into three areas — physics and informatics, cryptography and information security, and medical and health informatics — I believe blockchain can improve trust in various elements of business and society through new applications built on shared ledgers.
Security In Plain Sight
The concept of shared ledgers makes it nearly impossible to hide or forge a transaction on a blockchain. Everything that happens is confirmed publicly, logged publicly and stored on an openly verifiable ledger maintained by public consensus, with an immutable digital signature. It's this notion of public scrutiny, which is innate to the blockchain, that has the potential to assure security in new ways. A system designed on the blockchain would automatically include a public record of any data that has been accessed or tampered with. It should then become impossible to manipulate or hack a system without alerting a larger community. To be clear, blockchain-based applications do not typically require that private data or content is exposed for everyone to see; rather, the transactions involving that data are public. In one sense, I believe it's the transparency of the blockchain that enables privacy and security.
Behavior At The Core
While blockchain technology is derived from a wide range of theories, including principles of cryptography, networks, economics and law, it is also built on human behavior at its core. Since the security and privacy of the blockchain hinges on transparency, one of the fundamental assumptions that makes blockchain work is that the majority of participants will behave well. In other words, if most participants started to act maliciously, the whole trust system of the particular blockchain would break. This is the area where game theory plays its part — the system should be configured in a way that promotes "good behavior" or in a way in which "bad behavior" results in negative consequences to the bad actors.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/17/is-blockchains-transparency-the-missing-link-to-improving-data-security/