The blockchain is on fire, but don’t be confused by these rumors.
Vision china
Bitcoin’s myth of making money has ignited a brain-burning technology-blockchain. A virtual currency with the highest price soaring to 19,850 US dollars (December 2017) has formed a fiery currency circle by itself. There are even people who fish in troubled waters under the guise of blockchain, write a white paper, issue a set of tokens, and then let the media create momentum. After hanging in the exchange for a few days, they can raise 10 million yuan.
Since 2018, the financial systems of various countries have stopped or boycotted all kinds of token issuance financing activities, and blockchain technology has been cold. After a year, the blockchain is on fire again, not only in the currency circle, but also in the application of blockchain in various industries. Recently, some media reported that there is still chaos in the currency circle under the blockchain boom, and the operation of clamoring that "double 11" can be 100 times richer is actually illegal fund-raising.
The blockchain is on fire, and there are various rumors about it.
Blockchain equals Bitcoin?
Bitcoin and blockchain are more like the relationship between chicken and egg.
On November 1, 2008, a post appeared in a cryptographic mailing list: "I am developing a new electronic cash system, which is completely peer-to-peer and does not require any third party’s intervention." Signed Satoshi Nakamoto.
What followed was the first block in the blockchain, known as the creation block. Except the Chuangshi block has a unique ID number, each subsequent block contains two ID numbers, one is the ID number of the block itself, and the other is the ID number of the preceding block.
It can be said that Bitcoin is the first application of blockchain technology, and blockchain technology is also derived from Bitcoin, but the two are not equal. In other words, bitcoin and blockchain are more like the relationship between chicken and egg. It is hard to tell whether there is chicken or egg first. What is certain is that the blockchain technology bred from bitcoin has undergone many formal changes in the development process, and it has been innovated according to different application fields.
"Bitcoin is a representative application of the blockchain public chain. It is a blockchain that anyone in the world can enter the system at any time to read data, send confirmable transactions and compete for accounting." Chen Shanhua, technical director of Beijing Siyuan Zhengtong Technology Group, introduced that Ethereum and Super Account Book introduced smart contracts into the blockchain, and stipulated the trading behavior between me and you by contract. It can be said that smart contracts have opened a new field of blockchain world applications. And the platform provides a complete development description for the encapsulation of the underlying protocol, which lowers the application threshold of blockchain technology and promotes the application of blockchain technology in various industries.
Blockchain is a chain?
There are many forms of variation, and a cross-chain mechanism can be formed within the chain.
If the Internet is more than just a network, then the blockchain must be more than just a chain.
Cross-chain mechanism can be formed in blockchain, and it is gradually becoming mature and applicable. Cross-chain simply means that information goes from one chain to another, which is a bit like information going from one intranet to another.
Different modules of a distributed application may be deployed in different chains, so how can it call modules in other chains and how can different modules interact with each other? Chen Shanhua explained, for example, in the field of government affairs, data can be isolated by building account books such as directory chain, license chain and business necklace, and public data and private data can be isolated, thus ensuring data protection.
From bitcoin to Ethereum, to super ledger, from public chain to alliance chain to private chain, there are many forms of blockchain in different dimensions, and with the application in many fields, blockchain will increasingly become an important infrastructure used in the industry, far beyond the fields of cryptocurrency and financial services.
Blockchain will expose private data?
The use of combined encryption technology has not been cracked yet.
"The data that’ runs’ on the blockchain is encrypted before it is uploaded, so it will not cause the disclosure of private data." Chen Shanhua introduced that the combination of blockchain and asymmetric encryption algorithm, based on the anonymity of blockchain and other capabilities, further maintains the ownership and use rights of data in blockchain. Users can encrypt their private information with personal public key, and the private key is owned by the users themselves. Only the users can decrypt the encrypted information, and both users use each other’s public key for data sharing and transmission, so as to realize point-to-point data sharing security. In the choice of algorithm, the blockchain usually uses the international standard ECC and the Chinese standard SM2. Theoretically speaking, it is very difficult to decrypt this matter itself, and it is almost impossible to do it. Moreover, the blockchain adopts one person and one secret, and the risk of data leakage and cracking is smaller.
It is reported that since the birth of Bitcoin, the information carried by the blockchain itself has never been intercepted by hackers, and the problems arising are all foreign aid problems such as exchanges. In fact, the security problem of blockchain technology lies in the fact that there may be undiscovered loopholes in its open source code, which may be exploited by hackers.
Hackers’ attacks on blockchain technology can occur at six different levels: application layer, contract layer, incentive layer and data layer. The 360 security team conducted a security test on a public chain and exchange, and the team found 42 vulnerabilities, including 29 high-risk vulnerabilities that could affect the security of user accounts. Weibo Wang, Information Security Department of 360 Group, said, "By analyzing some security incidents and taking blockchain attacks as the starting point, we can deeply analyze the hacker’s attack methods and do a good job of security protection against different attacks."
Is the information in the blockchain correct?
To ensure the authenticity of the data in the chain, a supporting system is needed.
Blockchain cannot be tampered with. If someone moves the data in a certain node (for example, Zhang San originally transferred one bitcoin to Li Si, but Zhang San gave Li Si two), then the timestamp is wrong, and this node is no longer the original node, and it will be identified. There are still a large number of copies in the blockchain network. If false data is found, it will be repaired, so all information on the blockchain cannot be tampered with.
But does it mean that the information is correct if it can’t be tampered with? Blockchain can only restrict the information in the virtual world, but it can’t interfere with the authenticity of the actual data on the chain. Kai Wei, deputy director of the Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data of China Information and Communication Research Institute, said that the connection between the data on the blockchain and the real data is a prominent problem. Every industry has its own pain points when using blockchain. For example, in the traceability industry, how to ensure that the data on the chain corresponds to the traced products one by one without being "replaced"?
Whether the information written on the chain is true or not can accurately reflect the reality, which cannot be solved by blockchain technology and must be guaranteed by means outside the chain. Kai Wei believes that the construction of supporting systems is needed to ensure the authenticity of data in the blockchain.
Can blockchain completely eliminate fraudulent activities?
"Air coin" has always existed, and technical means are difficult to break the human nature problem.
Recently, a report entitled "Investigation on Currency Circle Chaos under the Blockchain Boom of Claiming" double 11 to Get Rich 100 Times "investigated the resurgent" air currency ":Take Biki Virtual Currency Exchange as an example, relying on a model similar to Pinduoduo, it launched" air currency "and" attracting people "crazily, focused on sinking the market, and launched more than 150 kinds of virtual currency. Biki’s coin projects are basically "air coins" with no underlying technical team and no practical value, and the so-called white paper is full of loopholes. But there are too many people who want to get rich overnight-"We also know that we may be cheated, but we may make a wave just by holding the psychology of who runs fast."
It is difficult to solve the problem of human nature by technology, and whether fraudulent activities disappear depends on whether people’s greed is reasonably controlled. On the contrary, the emergence of virtual currency has made criminal activities have new channels and turned into areas that are more difficult to detect and control.
In April 2018, there was a coin circle incident in which a line of code evaporated by 6.4 billion yuan. Just because the hacker found a code loophole, all the market value of the blockchain products related to it was instantly transferred out, approaching zero.
In addition to the theft of economic benefits, the channels and methods of using bitcoin to pay and money laundering are also varied. "The participation of Bitcoin (most of the encrypted digital currency recognized by the black market is Bitcoin) may make the police’s method of solving crimes by pursuing the capital chain invalid." Natalie of Shandong Police College once said that in his work, he felt that the case was not easy to investigate, and it was much more difficult to trace the criminals. (Reporter Zhang Jiaxing)