Quick Overview: What is Factom?

Factom is an irreversible publishing engine (write once, never erase). Factom removes the need for blind trust by providing a precise, verifiable, and immutable audit trail.

Factom secures data for private and public organizations by publishing encrypted data or a cryptographically unique fingerprint of the data to Factom’s immutable, distributed ledger.

At a high level, Factom can be utilized for:

1. Enterprise level notarization
2. Securing actionable data
3. Provenance
4. Publishing audit trails for business processes

Factom’s ledger is secured by placing a “Merkle Root ” into the Bitcoin blockchain every 10 minutes–a simple and effective way to piggyback off the Bitcoin’s network security. This time-stamped, immutable data serves as a “proof of existence” for all future business processes that build upon the secured data. Factom’s anchoring can be extended other public blockchains (coming soon to an Ethereum node near you).

Using Factom

Use Case 1: Authenticating customer communication

Most retail banks use promotional and transactional messages to target customers and prospective customers in electronic formats (email, text message, etc.). Currently, phishing is a major concern in this space. Perpetrators of fraud use the bank’s branding to acquire account information from customers. While there are ways for a bank and consumers to mitigate this risk, they are not foolproof or particularly user-friendly.

A blockchain-based solution can be used to certify and authenticate communications from the bank. Each message would display a unique, immutable, blockchain-based signature or a certificate to prove the authenticity of each communication.

At a high level, a cryptographic hash could be published to secure and prove the source, length and time of each communication. A Factom based certificate or code embedded/accessible via a link in the email/text could validate and provide a real-time proof of authenticity for the electronic communication.

Overall, Factom is an excellent fit for authentication of emails, messages, and websites. This would eliminate large costs and risks with third-party authentication solutions. Alternatively, Factom can allow third-party authentication solutions greater transparency and validation.

Use Case 2: Document Management, Data Lineage and Standard of Care

Factom can be used for controlling/monitoring document version of various documents/templates used internally and externally by financial institutions. For many processes, regulators require documentation of each template version (to prove data lineage). Publishing cryptographic hashes during each step of a mission-critical business process can provide an irrefutable “proof of existence.” Factom provides transparency in an otherwise opaque process.

According to one of the leading big four audit firms, negligence for using an incorrect version of a document template can amount to almost $1000/record in fines in the insurance industry. In this scenario, Factom can be used to compare and track the unique fingerprint of a document template being used to that of a template that’s supposed to be used. An audit trail like this allows financial organizations to reduce audit costs and prove a “standard of care.” Another example would be generating unique fingerprints for documents and photographs submitted for an insurance claim and proving that the same documents were indeed used to settle the claim.

Wealth Management divisions in most retail banks offer a wide array of services to high and ultra-high net worth individuals and families. These services involve a wide array of documents, including wills, trust agreements, and estate plans. While fairly static, there are modifications and addendums made to these documents. Changes to these documents can be tracked, notarized, and time-stamped using Factom. This process would ensure execution of most recent versions documents. Customers of Wealth Management services could know which chains are tracking their documents. When a new entry shows up, they can be alerted to the activity and can request more information about the activity without fear of loss of messages.

Use Case 3: System of Record

Large banks typically have massive systems infrastructure to support their banking operations. In some instances, data transactions between disparate systems contain incorrect or inappropriate data. Thus, initiating a reconciliation process and, subsequently, an audit review. As the number of systems multiply, each system has sway over some data set, settlement becomes increasingly difficult. Factom, as a shared ledger, could ensure that transactions and data shared with the core systems are consistent and error-free.

Instead of using multiple, micro APIs to connect disparate systems to track updated information. All systems would publish or read from Factom’s shared ledger (based on their privileges, managed by private keys). The disparate systems would use Factom as a decentralized, immutable data layer they all can blindly trust for storing both data or pointers for large data sets. Even if the data transport layer does not change, Factom can ensure that data provided by one system can pass between many systems without having to trust the intermediaries.

Factom’s immutable timestamp allows any system to recognize the latest state of the data related to a particular record without querying another system. Factom gives you the ability to know that you have all the data critical to a settlement. Factom can serve as an “Oracle,” a truth engine, for the rest of the systems infrastructure. Factom makes that process fast and inexpensive.

Closing thoughts:

Factom’s design (write anything, any format) is designed to drive usage in as many ways as one can imagine. It allows applications and use cases to evolve and grow via iterative processes without being restricted by the underlying blockchain layer. And that is the true power of Factom-simplicity.

Blockchain use cases for financial institutions using Factom was originally published in my two satoshis on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reposted from https://abhi.dobhal.com/thinking-about-freedom-at-acl-dae75b8788df

This weekend, I attended Austin City Limits (ACL) for the second time. It’s my way of celebrating the city of Austin, Zilker park, and music from the past few decades. If you haven’t attended ACL yet, I highly recommend it.

Music festivals celebrate humanity by bringing people from all walks of lives together with one common purpose — to enjoy music. Music, in my opinion, is one of the top five legacies we can pass on to our future generations in addition to technology, art, dance and literature (in no particular order). Music celebrates Freedom — both freedom of speech and expression.

In spite of the perfect festival weather, it was evident that the recent Las Vegas shooting was on the minds of both the attendees and the artists. Ice Cube, in particular, was vocal in his unique way.

“Nobody can stop Freedom (followed by explicit phrases).”
The crowd cheered.

Allison Wonderland, on the other hand, struggled with finding the right words and resorted to just flipping the bird and then trying to explain what it represented. Sigh, but that’s a different story.

Anyways, I pondered about how many people stop to think about what Freedom means to them?

Freedom comes in so many forms, which ones do we cherish more than others? In what order? How do you perceive political, economic and religious liberties individually? Which one would you be willing to give up first?

The admissions committee at Acton, an MBA in Entrepreneurship program, had posed this as an admissions essay question six years ago. I love this question — there is no right or wrong answer but makes you think hard about what you stand for.

My thoughts on freedom haven’t changed much since I first jotted them down. If anything, the past few years pursuing my entrepreneurial journey have affirmed my beliefs about freedom.

Here is where I stand.

Even though I am not particularly religious, Religious liberty is the most personal of all freedoms, and therefore the last one I would give up.

Without religious liberty, individuals and communities would have no freedom to forge unique identities or challenge current beliefs. Restricting a person’s moral dialogue and search for meaning will inhibit intellectual, spiritual, and social growth. I believe that confining the thoughts and ideas of an individual would ultimately rot a society’s moral fabric.

Religious liberty is closely followed by political liberty. By allowing individual equality and autonomy, I view political freedom as a fundamental platform for forging, recognizing and amending commonly held laws and morals without fear. The United States, one of the most diverse nations, has allowed each ethnic group to contribute to its society over the past two hundred years. The resulting stream of fresh thoughts has allowed American society to evolve continuously and become a fertile land for innovation, both socially and economically.

Derived in part from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I would give up economic liberty first. Religious liberty allows fulfillment of psychological needs, political liberty ensures safety and belonging, and economic liberty supports an individual’s self-esteem and self-actualization.

While some may argue that economic drivers can determine the political will, I believe these rewards are short-lived. The uncertainty caused by a lack of civil liberties can hamper innovation and prevent society from achieving its full potential.

As a seasoned traveler and aspiring entrepreneur, I have found that the most religiously and politically liberal countries tend to be the most innovative. For example, the UAE’s liberal approach relative to its Middle Eastern neighbors has allowed Dubai to become the region’s primary commercial hub. Even in the UAE, it is clear that with a lack of political and religious freedom, the benefits of economic liberty are limited.

What’s your stand on freedom? Thoughts?

Liberation Day intro. and how to write for us

Thinking about Freedom at ACL was originally published in Liberation Day on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This weekend, I attended Austin City Limits (ACL) for the second time. It’s my way of celebrating the city of Austin, Zilker park, and music from the past few decades. If you haven’t attended ACL yet, I highly recommend it.

Music festivals celebrate humanity by bringing people from all walks of lives together with one common purpose — to enjoy music. Music, in my opinion, is one of the top five legacies we can pass on to our future generations in addition to technology, art, dance and literature (in no particular order). Music celebrates Freedom —both freedom of speech and expression.

In spite of the perfect festival weather, it was evident that the recent Las Vegas shooting was on the minds of both the attendees and the artists. Ice Cube, in particular, was vocal in his unique way.

“Nobody can stop Freedom (followed by explicit phrases).”
The crowd cheered.

Allison Wonderland, on the other hand, struggled with finding the right words and resorted to just flipping the bird and then trying to explain what it represented. Sigh, but that’s a different story.

Anyways, I pondered about how many people stop to think about what Freedom means to them?

Freedom comes in so many forms, which ones do we cherish more than others? In what order? How do you perceive political, economic and religious liberties individually? Which one would you be willing to give up first?

The admissions committee at Acton, an MBA in Entrepreneurship program, had posed this as an admissions essay question six years ago. I love this question — there is no right or wrong answer but makes you think hard about what you stand for.

My thoughts on freedom haven’t changed much since I first jotted them down. If anything, the past few years pursuing my entrepreneurial journey have affirmed my beliefs about freedom.

Here is where I stand.

Even though I am not particularly religious, Religious liberty is the most personal of all freedoms, and therefore the last one I would give up.

Without religious liberty, individuals and communities would have no freedom to forge unique identities or challenge current beliefs. Restricting a person’s moral dialogue and search for meaning will inhibit intellectual, spiritual, and social growth. I believe that confining the thoughts and ideas of an individual would ultimately rot a society’s moral fabric.

Religious liberty is closely followed by political liberty. By allowing individual equality and autonomy, I view political freedom as a fundamental platform for forging, recognizing and amending commonly held laws and morals without fear. The United States, one of the most diverse nations, has allowed each ethnic group to contribute to its society over the past two hundred years. The resulting stream of fresh thoughts has allowed American society to evolve continuously and become a fertile land for innovation, both socially and economically.

Derived in part from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I would give up economic liberty first. Religious liberty allows fulfillment of psychological needs, political liberty ensures safety and belonging, and economic liberty supports an individual’s self-esteem and self-actualization.

While some may argue that economic drivers can determine the political will, I believe these rewards are short-lived. The uncertainty caused by a lack of civil liberties can hamper innovation and prevent society from achieving its full potential.

As a seasoned traveler and aspiring entrepreneur, I have found that the most religiously and politically liberal countries tend to be the most innovative. For example, the UAE’s liberal approach relative to its Middle Eastern neighbors has allowed Dubai to become the region’s primary commercial hub. Even in the UAE, it is clear that with a lack of political and religious freedom, the benefits of economic liberty are limited.

What’s your stand on freedom? Thoughts?

Thinking about Freedom at ACL was originally published in my two satoshis on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Gall’s law is one of my favorite “rules,” especially from a product management perspective.

Gall’s Law states that all complex systems that work evolved from simpler systems that worked. If you want to build a complex system that works, create a simpler system first, and then improve it over time.

Win the battle, win the war
There are entire schools of lean development out there. Keep it simple, launch, test hypothesis, and then build features that are actually needed. I like to think of it as picking one battle (release) at a time to win the war (product). Smaller campaigns require less time, money, people. Easier to adapt to evolving requirements and inexpensive if they fail. Each effort is a building block for next one. I am a big fan of Agile Scrum’s ‘sprints’ as it forces you to think small.

Earlier this week, I was at a conference where I observed some of the sharpest minds in that space discussing one of the hardest problems in the world to solve. These projects are pretty much at the national/state level.
Humans tend to design elaborate systems as its a more intellectually stimulating exercise. Implementing the complex solution typically ends up exhausting patience, and generating a whole lot of frustration. The last 20% of the project typically takes much, much longer to complete. Crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s is the difference between success and failure public infrastructure project. To shrink that last 20% of effort, you need to shrink the scope of such projects. Think in terms of minimal viable offering. Smaller the scope, lower the risk. Fail quickly, fail cheap.

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

PMP — a symptom, rather than a cure
Do we really need certifications like PMP if we lived in a world of simple projects?

“The PMP contains 42 processes that can be adopted to improve the success rate of projects…”.

That’s 40 more than we need. Give me common sense and good communication all day long!

Stitching it all together
We need to build technology public infrastructure projects in a world where efforts are decomposed into working lego pieces that deliver value to end users/citizens at each implementation. I am very hopeful for the new wave of technology infrastructure projects with the advent of cloud computing, the API Economy, Blockchains, and IoT. New emerging technology has taught us the value of stitching together functional pieces to create more value.

Update: Special thanks to Carl DiClementi for the fastest feedback and suggestions I have ever received on a post!

Gall’s law and public infrastructure was originally published in my two satoshis on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the past decade, technologists have drastically improved the infrastructure of the Internet. Application developers quickly learned to offload non-core functions to other specialists and consume those services via a micro-services model. Various players focused on different pieces of the puzzle and then specialized in delivering those separate components. A trend that accelerated as a result of the “pay-as-you-go” model and the ability to combine multiple services using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

Now we see these same services being bundled and delivered in an easy to consume and configure stack through cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine, and Microsoft Azure. These giants can provide these services at economies of scale not possible earlier. In his book, How to Build the Future, author Vikram Rangnekar paints a fascinating picture of how “the Cloud” evolved and how companies like Google are making their technology architecture accessible to everyone. APIs allow companies to unlock their data and provide it in a flexible format that allows their customers the freedom and space to use it in surprising ways. APIs have also been instrumental in creating a marketplace providing add-on apps for many leading software “platforms.” Zapier, for example, specializes in ready-made API connectors between commonly used business services such as Infusionsoft, Zendesk, and Salesforce, to name just a few. Great. So everyone is winning. So what’s next? Where do we go from here?

Blockchains and Trust
The quick adoption of API services has produced the API economy, where applications are communicating with each other to search databases, fill orders, or even make phone calls, all with minimal human input. This speed, however, is not without its drawbacks. To enable any micro-services integration, one must implicitly trust that things just work between you, the provider, and any other third party involved. When machines communicate with one another, there is an inherent trust gap that opens up. Automation works great until it doesn’t. Security holes in one service can severely impact your business systems. Remember the virus from the movie Office Space designed to divert fractions of pennies into a bank account, transactions small enough to avoid detection. Yes, things like that should keep us awake at night.

Automation and high-frequency transactions create a camouflage for security exploits and trust evasion which will eventually lead to a “manually auditing” hell. How can customers be sure, for example, that no one is tweaking the counts in the pay-as-you-go model? After all, it’s the provider providing those billable usage stats. In this digital world, we need the ability to trust and verify. That’s the only way we can keep things honest.

There has been an explosion in services that provide various types of dashboards and instrumentation, but they are only as good as the data they read. How do we make the API economy trustworthy and secure? In a world where we have applications talking to applications and multiple service agreements how do we implement guardrails and hold service providers accountable? How can multiple service providers collaborate efficiently while trusting each other? Blockchains provide a ready-made solution for this dilemma. In a future not so far away, instrumentation and dashboard visualization tools will incorporate Blockchain validation as part their reporting.

With its inherent security features based on cryptography, blockchain offers the ability to maintain an incorruptible record of a transaction from start to finish. Even if that transaction occurs between multiple APIs, the blockchain could reassure customers that every step is accounted for and they could see a time-stamped record of the entire process on a “ledger” all parties can trust. At Factom, we are designing API based services that allow different businesses to use Factom’s data layer to publish immutable audit trails. The general-purpose layer allows users to define their data structure and validation logic. An application writing to the Factom Blockchain uses its private keys to sign the various digital records digitally. So in an API economy, each API service provider can thus use Factom as a public witness via our Blockchain as a Service.

Blockchain as an SLA rail
The blockchain could be used as an immutable messaging protocol to enhance trust between multiple vendors (with multiple service levels) and a service aggregator. Each vendor would use the blockchain to record and signal to the aggregator pertinent information about services delivered which could be validated against a Service Level Agreement on the… yes, you guessed it — blockchain.

For instance, imagine the smart cars of the future. The manufacturer could provide customers with an endlessly customizable list of different services available for each vehicle, combining numerous different aspects into one simple monthly fee. Thus, one could effectively bundle toll payments, parking, fuel, insurance, etc. Blockchains would ensure that the data coming from all of these different vendors was trustworthy, secure, and up-to-date.
In today’s world, trying to deploy and maintain such a customized system across so many platforms would be an administrative hassle, but combining the speed and automation of APIs with the security of the blockchain would make it effortless to administer mass-customization. The services provided to each customer could be managed seamlessly with zero trust gap since the entire process is available for audit and review.

The economy of the future will be built on speed, customization, and security. APIs alone can accomplish the first two, but to reach their full potential, they will need the blockchain. Working together, blockchains and APIs could produce an economy that provides unprecedented levels of service while also maintaining a secure environment in which a global, digital economy can thrive.

Rise of the APIs (powered by Blockchain) was originally published in my two satoshis on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Runaway public expenditure seems to be a common theme in most countries around the world resulting in public debts that go through the roof. The US’s national debt, for example, is a little over 19.5 trillion and growing. That means each man, woman, and child in the country owes creditors an average of about $60,000 through government.

For the most part, a national budget goes into providing essential services and keeping robust public infrastructures. However, corruption, fraud, and bloated bureaucracy take a huge chunk of it.

According to the US’ Government Accountability Office (GAO), a public watchdog agency, the improper payment error rate for benefits is close to 5%. Much of that is paid to people who are already dead or felons who are not eligible.

The levels of wastage are even more astronomical in the developing world where accountability is much more lax. For example, a study in Kenya has established that close to 20% of the country’s budget is lost to fraud, misuse, and corruption. In India, its former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, once stated that only 15% of every Rupee set aside to alleviate poverty reaches the intended beneficiary. And according to a report by the World Economic Forum, the cost of corruption in Mexico is about 2% of the country’s GDP.

Sadly, citizens and policymakers in these countries, and others have resigned themselves to the idea that there is little they can do to stop this hemorrhage from public coffers. Indeed, the view that the cost of running government can’t be brought down is widely accepted.

But sealing the loopholes is possible. The key is the blockchain technology, the distributed public ledger on which Bitcoin runs. What’s more, the blockchain goes further than eliminating waste. It also makes some actual cost items irrelevant.

More efficiency at a lower cost

It is true that Bitcoin has been a darling of the libertarian movement. The movement sees it as a tool for sidestepping government control. Therefore, the idea that government can benefit from the blockchain may carry a tinge of irony.

However, it is also true that Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, designed it so that no person or group of persons can claim its exclusive ownership. As a matter of fact, everyone is welcome to partake in the technology, and that invite doesn’t exclude government.

It is important to mention, however, that when a government chooses to use the blockchain, it doesn’t have to get involved with Bitcoin. Indeed, Bitcoin is just one of the many blockchain applications. Data integrity solutions built on protocols such as Factom make it very easy for large institutions to adopt Blockchain as part of the public infrastructure. Factom is a distributed, autonomous protocol that cost effectively separates the Bitcoin blockchain from the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. It allows for client defined chains of entries, client-­side validation of entries, a distributed consensus algorithm for recording entries, and a blockchain anchoring approach for security.

So what are the benefits the blockchain offers management of public funds?

The first benefit that the blockchain can afford government, regarding cutting costs, is making real-time auditing and reconciliation of public expenditure possible. While it takes months and sometimes even years for that to happen in the conventional arrangement, with a blockchain-based solution it would happen instantly.

Thus, for example, a death would automatically reflect on the official databases almost immediately it occurs. What’s more, through blockchain applications like smart contracts, the system would in turn automatically terminate submission of benefits to the deceased.

Smart contracts, as the name suggests, are auto-executing contracts (don’t need human intervention) on the blockchain platform. It could be code that says something like; if a death certificate is filed, terminate submission of benefits to the bank account of the deceased and also inform departments X, Y, and Z.

If that were to be implemented, the US federal government wouldn’t be submitting annually benefits totaling close to $200 million to dead recipients.

Furthermore, the technology makes it possible to move more services online with little cost. The state doesn’t need to invest in data centers and specialized security. By utilizing already existing blockchains, it can enhance services like land registries and social security.

Titles and deeds on blockchain based systems are assured of safety and immutability. More openness with fewer security risks. Blockchain serves as a public witness, an all seeing notary in the sky.

Another benefit the blockchain offers government is transparency to the public. Thus, incentivizing those in positions of authority to be prudent in the way they spend public funds. They will always know that everyone can see what amount of money is going where.

In many countries, for instance, public procurement is prone to interference and lack of accountability. The blockchain can change this. It makes it possible to open up and secure the process right from the request for proposal (RFP), bid submission to the selection of winners.

Further, the flow of funds to the contractors could be tracked on the blockchain platform using contractor’s IDs. Thus, ensuring that the money is spent on the intended projects.

And if the government gives aids to another, it will be in a position to follow how the money is spent, while encouraging accountability on the nation state receiving the aid.

Still, on transparency, the blockchain can facilitate secure online voting systems. It has the mechanism to protect the validity of each vote as well as the tally. With network validating the vote, no one individual or group of people has the power to rig outcomes.

Implementation of voting through the blockchain will cut the budget that goes into supporting the electoral process by huge margins.

Indeed, the blockchain makes continues and real-time auditing possible. This is because it makes it feasible to put data on public display without exposing it to security risk and while maintaining certain privacy. It makes government efficient but also improves the citizen experience and reduce the frustration of dealing with the bureaucratic slowness that is almost endemic in many countries.

While it has been long coming, governments are starting to wake up to the reality that they need to harness the power of the blockchain. In January 2016, UK Government Office for Science published a report titled Distributed Ledger Technology: Beyond blockchain. In it, the UK’s Government Chief Scientific Adviser encourages the government to embrace and test the blockchain technology.

“If government waits for ‘perfect’ solutions,” reads part of the report, “it will miss the opportunity to shape and procure implementations of the technology that will provide maximum benefit to the public sector, and the UK may lose opportunities for economic benefit as well.”

Blockchain: Key to Cutting Public Expenditure was originally published in my two satoshis on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My hunch (and secret wish) is that Elon Musk’s secret Tesla Master Plan, the real plan, is to deliver personal “Autobots” in the near future. As the first self-driving semis and passenger cars enter the commercial transportation market, insurance companies will have to rethink their ways to assess risk in the autonomous vehicles category. Even in the fictional world, humans have a history of not trusting sentient robots. Try convincing your local law enforcement official that Bumblebee, and not you, was at fault for speeding. Does one penalize and assign blame to the owner or the manufacturer of an autonomous vehicle when things go wrong? What we need is an indisputable “trust rail” that humans, robots, insurance companies, and authorities can use.

The three Tesla crashes in July brought up two important questions: What caused the accidents? Were the self-driving systems enabled? The answers to the first question, which pacify our curiosity and help us improve technology, are easy to determine based on the physical evidence and eyewitness accounts of the crashes. The answers to the second question, which assign blame to either the operators or the manufacturer, require more scrutiny as their validity depends on who provides them and what they stand to lose.

Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Jade Schope’s statement in USA Today was, “I have no way of verifying whether it was or wasn’t” — referring to whether the self-driving mode was on or off in the latest crash — highlights a scenario where it is the driver’s word against the manufacturer’s. Even if the driver was lucky enough to walk away with minimal injuries, can a third party trust the driver’s recollection of events? Drivers have been known to misrepresent the facts. According to Edmunds, 25 percent of bodily injury claims and 10 percent of auto damage claims resulting from car accidents are bogus. On the flip side, how much do we know about car manufacturers’ data collection practices? People and companies have a history of bending the truth and tampering with data (cough, cough, Volkswagen).

Data does not lie until it does. At the heart of this issue, who can we trust? How can we access untampered information that is explicitly honest? We are on the brink of adopting autonomous self-driving cars, so it’s only prudent that we explore reliable ways to record, manage, and validate vehicle data. According to a white paper published by Hitachi, a car will generate about 25 gigabytes of data per hour. That’s a lot of data that needs to be securely recorded and accessed. Besides scalability, we must also find ways to protect the car owner’s privacy.

Enter blockchains. These distributed ledgers make it hard to lie and keep users honest by providing a way of publishing and validating immutable data. Blockchains as a publishing platform can outlast any particular organization using them. Third parties like insurance companies can use blockchains to secure and verify all sensor data and the identity of the vehicles. Blockchains can be as powerful and useful as the utility they provide.

More incidents like these are on the horizon. We need to ensure that the data sources are kept honest, as the data they provide will be used to craft public safety policies and industry guidelines. In the event of a fatality or severe property damage, even the records subpoenaed by the court should be provable beyond doubt. There has been significant progress in storing and analyzing data in the past decade, but we are far from making it trustworthy.

In the case of Tesla accidents, imagine that data generated by the car was being “hashed” in real time. We wouldn’t need to publish all the sensor data into a blockchain but only time-stamped proofs or certain pertinent metadata (such as the autopilot mode being on/off). Here is a simple example of how vehicle data can be secured using Factom, an open-source, scalable blockchain for enterprise data: Using Carvoyant APIs, a few lines of code (written by our whiz intern, Steven Masley) could be used to secure information on the Factom network. In a similar fashion, manufacturers could build audit trails of data and metadata that could be shared securely with external parties.

It’s not hard to imagine a future where the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will mandate blockchain audit trails for all autonomous car data. Technology is only as good as the service it provides. Currently, we prefer to store information on paper, as atoms are harder to change than digital bits in a database. However, in an immutable, digital world, blockchains can keep humans and machines honest while allowing us to scale the way we manage and consume digital data.

Keeping Humans and Autobots Honest was originally published in my two satoshis on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.