<story><title>Real world ownership is not a use case for blockchain</title><url>https://schlockchain.substack.com/p/no-real-world-ownership-is-not-a</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nexuist</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not a hard problem, it&amp;#x27;s an impossible problem, because it violates the first law of cybersecurity: physical access means game over. When you start allowing untrained and un-punishable customers to mess with your meatspace database, of course it will lose all semblance of usefulness.&lt;p&gt;This problem is not hard to solve when you limit physical access, i.e. in a warehouse, pharmacy, or locked room where multiple employees are responsible for checking in and out items. These solutions arose directly out of your conundrum in retail, and investigations are launched when someone discovers a mismatch between inventory and real life (think toxic chemicals, drugs, etc).&lt;p&gt;Of course it just so happens that nobody wants to go to a grocery store where they&amp;#x27;re not allowed to touch the items.</text></item><item><author>ahelwer</author><text>This has always been obvious to anyone who spent the smallest amount of time working in consumer retail. Customer comes in and wants to buy a patio set they saw in the catalog. You check the database - says there are two in the back. You go to the back. You look for like ten minutes. Patio set is nowhere to be found. Customer has left in frustration by the time you return.&lt;p&gt;The hard problem has never been the specific form of database used to store info about the real world. The hard problem has always - and will always - be enforcing the correspondence between what&amp;#x27;s in the database and what&amp;#x27;s in the real world. This problem couldn&amp;#x27;t be solved at a single store in a single fairly small city. It&amp;#x27;s not gonna be solved worldwide.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>foobarian</author><text>They used to work like that.  You would come up to comrade cashier, and tell her what you wanted one by one, and pay.  I still remember the shock when I went into a supermarket for the first time.  Felt like going to a &amp;quot;authorized personnel only&amp;quot; place.</text></comment>
<story><title>Real world ownership is not a use case for blockchain</title><url>https://schlockchain.substack.com/p/no-real-world-ownership-is-not-a</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nexuist</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not a hard problem, it&amp;#x27;s an impossible problem, because it violates the first law of cybersecurity: physical access means game over. When you start allowing untrained and un-punishable customers to mess with your meatspace database, of course it will lose all semblance of usefulness.&lt;p&gt;This problem is not hard to solve when you limit physical access, i.e. in a warehouse, pharmacy, or locked room where multiple employees are responsible for checking in and out items. These solutions arose directly out of your conundrum in retail, and investigations are launched when someone discovers a mismatch between inventory and real life (think toxic chemicals, drugs, etc).&lt;p&gt;Of course it just so happens that nobody wants to go to a grocery store where they&amp;#x27;re not allowed to touch the items.</text></item><item><author>ahelwer</author><text>This has always been obvious to anyone who spent the smallest amount of time working in consumer retail. Customer comes in and wants to buy a patio set they saw in the catalog. You check the database - says there are two in the back. You go to the back. You look for like ten minutes. Patio set is nowhere to be found. Customer has left in frustration by the time you return.&lt;p&gt;The hard problem has never been the specific form of database used to store info about the real world. The hard problem has always - and will always - be enforcing the correspondence between what&amp;#x27;s in the database and what&amp;#x27;s in the real world. This problem couldn&amp;#x27;t be solved at a single store in a single fairly small city. It&amp;#x27;s not gonna be solved worldwide.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;problem is not hard to solve when you limit physical access, i.e. in a warehouse, pharmacy, or locked room where multiple employees are responsible for checking in and out items&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you know anyone who works in retail, a warehouse or a pharmacy? Nothing is ever where it should be in the quantities the computer thinks it’s in.</text></comment>