├── BCImplementationandIntegration_DRAFT_May25.docx ├── Implementation-integration └── governannce │ └── outline.md ├── README.md ├── economic-study ├── 2017-ICSA-Blockchain-Costmodel--authors_copy.pdf ├── MIT Simple Economics of the Blockchain.pdf ├── Outline └── resources.md ├── fibf └── Outline.md └── new-technology-integration └── Outline.md /BCImplementationandIntegration_DRAFT_May25.docx: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fdevaulx/blockchain-playbook-dev/85151ec1f16fc42f1e7aae028243d838cd5a24fb/BCImplementationandIntegration_DRAFT_May25.docx -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Implementation-integration/governannce/outline.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Governance (Patrick) 2 | How we do business today is point – point, and how each actor does business through each other. In many cases we reconcile data after the fact. We have a problem today with 2 government agencies talking to each other and putting together a MOU or IAA. 3 | - Dispute Resolution 4 | - Exception Process 5 | - Establishing rules of how we play the game upfront for Blockchain is going to be very different from the traditional model 6 | o No single owner 7 | o Data is shared 8 | o Rules for on-ramp / off-ramp are different or doesn’t exist in current models in most cases 9 | o Distributed responsibility 10 | 11 | - Some of the areas Governance should consider and will be different from the traditional model. As described above, the traditional models assume a single system owned and managed by a single entity (an organization or a division within the organization). The Blockchain implementation questions this very basic premise and requires a paradigm shift. We will now have to consider the operations as a collective and cooperative, much like a Home Owner's Association (HOA) where each owner has a vested interest in the HOA while their own independant interest in the 'consortium' and would like to arrive at a consensus for all HOA related matters. 12 | 13 | When we are considering Governance in the model described above, the following components of governance also take a different flavor and must be carefully considered and crafted for a succesfull implementation of a Blockchain solution: (Venkat) 14 | o Risk management: Risks for a Blockchain Implementation takes multiple layers and have to be managed and mitigated accordingly. The risks posed by the overall implementation must be shared and dealt with by all the parties on the network. Consider the risk of burglary within the community that is managed by the HOA. Won't all the householders be interested in mitigating this risk? 15 | 16 | o Change management: In addition to the traditional change management, Governance should also take into account changes to the Blockchain Network affecting each participant's own enclave. The reverse also holds true, each participant should ensure any changes to their enclave doesn't mess with the blockchain implementation or else have the governance board weigh in on the changes. An additional component that can change could be the rules around the validation of the block itself. In some cases, these rules take the form of a SmartContract. What happens when the rules have to change? How does it affect the 'posture' of each member? What happens to the blocks in the chain before and after the change? 17 | 18 | o Release management: Release Management becomes a component of change management ahd deals with when and how the releases make into production. This is similar to the HOA resurfacing the main road in the HOA or rolling out a new internet service to all the homes in the HOA. Planning and approvals have to be part of release management. 19 | 20 | o Security management: Security takes a totally larger role in the Governance of a Blockchain implementation. The governance has to ensure security to not one but every participant on the network. The compliance model has to take on and ensure FISMA and any security coverage for every participant which has a potential of crossing multiple security boundaries. 21 | 22 |  Key Management (Standards): Key Management takes a central role for a Blockchain solution. Everything on the blockchain needs a Key to access, and the security of the key becomes paramount. Care should be taken in developing the standards around the management of the Crypto Keys generated. 23 | 24 | o IT service management: A central tenet of a ITSM is to be the SPOC for any issues with the services provided by the Blockchain. But, due to the architectural nature of Blockchain, ITSM becomes less of an issue, as the loss of a single node is not felt by the network. But, care should be taken in crafting the policies and procedures around the SPOC, as it has to service multiple organizations with different requirements. This is no different from a public facing helpdesk. For this very reason, ITSM is less of a concern for a Blockchain Implementation. 25 | o Stakeholder management: Its hard as it is to manage the competing priorities of members within one household, expand that to every stake holder of every house in the HOA, it's chaos. Hello Rules.. Here they come. Followed by guidelines to make these rules. Stakeholder management in a Blockchain implementation is no different. The guidelines should be iron clad. 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | Examples: 30 | 1. Estonia - https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-governance/ 31 | 2. energyweb.org 32 | 3. Forbes - Republic of Georgia - https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/02/07/the-first-government-to-secure-land-titles-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-expands-project/#3e26c30d4dcd 33 | 4. Monetary Authority of Singapore & Middle East - Common Trade Platform on Blockchain 34 | 5. Hongkong 35 | 6. Ghana Land Registry - http://bitlandglobal.com/ 36 | 7. UN World Food Program - https://un-blockchain.org/category/wfp/ 37 | 8. Manchester Food Stamp Services - 38 | 9. Mike Allman for Congress - Campaign Donation and Voter Democracy Platform (Ethereum) - https://www.fastcompany.com/40509226/this-candidate-for-congress-will-let-his-constituents-decide-how-he-votes 39 | 10 - Utah Republican Party voting - https://www.ccn.com/blockchain-tech-enables-utah-republicans-vote-candidate/ 40 | 11. Zug Switzerland Digital ID: https://medium.com/uport/first-official-registration-of-a-zug-citizen-on-ethereum-3554b5c2c238 41 | 42 | Do we want to start talking about intersection with Government? - 43 | Do we want to talk about projects in-flight? 44 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Blockchain Working Group Projects 2 | 3 | ## Economic studies 4 | meeting info: Fridays 9am. Sarah Ropper 5 | 6 | ## Workforce Dev 7 | meeting info: 8 | 9 | ## Playbook Completion 10 | meeting info: 11 | 12 | ## NIH 13 | meeting info: 14 | 15 | ## World Bank 16 | meeting info: 17 | 18 | ## FIBF 19 | meeting info: Thursdays - 4 - 5 PM. Venkat Kodumudi 20 | 21 | ## Security 22 | meeting info: 23 | 24 | ## Other Technology Integration 25 | meeting info: Tuesdays 2 - 3 PM - Venkat Kodumudi 26 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /economic-study/2017-ICSA-Blockchain-Costmodel--authors_copy.pdf: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fdevaulx/blockchain-playbook-dev/85151ec1f16fc42f1e7aae028243d838cd5a24fb/economic-study/2017-ICSA-Blockchain-Costmodel--authors_copy.pdf -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /economic-study/MIT Simple Economics of the Blockchain.pdf: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fdevaulx/blockchain-playbook-dev/85151ec1f16fc42f1e7aae028243d838cd5a24fb/economic-study/MIT Simple Economics of the Blockchain.pdf -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /economic-study/Outline: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Layout: 2 | Introduction 3 | Cost element 1: Cost of Storage 4 | Cost element 2: Cost of computing power for consensus algorithms/Scalability of Consensus 5 | Cost element 3: Cost of specialized resources/Labor 6 | Cost element 4: Cost of Governance/Regulation/Compliance 7 | Benefits element 1: Financial 8 | Benefits element 2: Non-financial benefits 9 | Summary of Costs 10 | References 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Introduction: 15 | 16 | 17 | What are the economics of Blockchain? How much does it really cost and what are the cost benefits? This economic study will 18 | explore the financial and other aspects of implementing Blockchain at Agencies and Companies. 19 | 20 | - Blockchain-based payment systems could potentially provide a more efficient, faster, and cheaper alternative to existing 21 | electronic payment methods. In these models, traditional intermediaries are removed, counterparty risk is reduced, and 22 | interchange fees are eliminated. Moreover, the blockchain could facilitate an online payments mechanism for small businesses 23 | that cannot afford more expensive payments networks. Blockchain-based payment systems may also facilitate micro-payments, 24 | allowing businesses to monetize very low-cost goods or services sold on the internet that currently cannot be sold at an 25 | appropriately low per/unit cost, given traditional payments systems’ higher transaction costs. Furthermore, blockchain-based 26 | remittance platforms, though at an early stage, could facilitate lower-cost remittances for financially excluded populations. 27 | - Blockchain technology propose to improve the way financial assets are intermediated by large, complex, wholesale financial 28 | institutions. Wholesale intermediation typically begins with soliciting, negotiating, and accepting customer requests for a 29 | wide array of financial transactions, which are then recorded, executed and risk-managed. Intermediation is a long chain of 30 | steps that include certain new, statutorily-mandated and critically important activities, like clearing and disclosing of 31 | transactions and risks. This front-to-back process or chain of activities is controlled by a set of reconciled subledgers that 32 | together constitute the firms’ books and records of their financial activities. Reconciliation is an age-old critical control for 33 | ledger integrity. It relies on the assumption that it is more difficult to commit errors or malfeasance when multiple people are 34 | looking at the same thing, and currently involves onerous, redundant, manual processes. Blockchain technology could provide an 35 | automated and more efficient way to perform ledger reconciliation, because it generates efficient, automated, electronic consensus 36 | that the distributed ledger is accurate. Use of blockchain technology in the wholesale space is currently limited to a small 37 | quantity of products in OTC cash and derivative trading (e.g., itBit); exchange trading, margining and financing (tØ.com); 38 | alternative models for correspondent banking and foreign exchange transaction execution (Ripple). One report estimates that the 39 | technology could reduce wholesale finance infrastructure costs by $15-20 billion per year by 2022. 40 | 41 | 42 | Cost element 1: Cost of Storage 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | - Currently no constructs for archive of old information – so once committed always in the chain 47 | - Comparison in the cost of data storage (purchase price per GB) provides the viability for blockchain tech 48 | - Point out drop in cost of data storage (purchase price of $437,500 per GB in 1980 to just under $0.03 per GB in 2014), 49 | which provides the viability for blockchain technologies. That was a great article you posted from medium. 50 | - Comparison cost of blockchain relative to centralized databases. 51 | - Blockchain can lower costs when compared with the licensing and support fees charged by the big CSPs like oracle. 52 | - Hosting, licensing, and implementation costs. 53 | - Hiring or outsourcing for talent to maintain the system. 54 | - Energy costs may rise tremendously as the transaction volume increases. 55 | - Bandwidth costs: The cost of network resources required to receive and transmit transactions, blocks, and metadata. 56 | - The cost of storing all currently spendable transactions, which is necessary for miners and full nodes to perform transaction 57 | validation, and of storing the blockchain's (much larger) historical data, which is necessary to bootstrap new nodes that join 58 | the network. 59 | - Perhaps we can do our own deep dive into the cost of storing data in a blockchain database. 60 | 61 | 62 | Cost element 2: Cost of computing power for consensus algorithms/Scalability of Consensus 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | - Transaction costs for scalability: for example, today's representative bitcoin blockchain takes 10 mins or longer to confirm 67 | transactions, achieves 7 transactions/sec. By comparison, Visa confirms a transaction within seconds, and processes 2000 68 | transactions/sec on average, with a peak rate of 56,000 transactions/sec. This shows large gap exists between where blockchain 69 | is today, and the scalability of a mainstream payment processor. Therefore, the key questions are, can decentralized blockchains 70 | be scaled up to match the performance of a mainstream payment processor? What does it take to get there? 71 | - By enabling users to directly and securely transfer ownership and eliminate—or at least greatly reduce—the intermediation 72 | involved in traditional financial transactions, blockchain technology could potentially lower transaction costs; provide 73 | near-real time settlement; and reduce counterparty risk, thereby increasing efficiency in a broad range of financial industries. 74 | 75 | Cost element 3: Cost of specialized resources/labor 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | Cost element4: Cost of Governance/Regulatory/Compliance 80 | 81 | 82 | Combiz: can do a whole sub-section on this, issues remain if control over the platform and its underlying data are held by a broader 83 | set of stakeholders. 84 | - Who funds and owns the platform as well as the data? 85 | - Who ensures that it continues to meet evolving requirements? 86 | - Who is responsible for upgrades and maintenance? 87 | - Costs associated with the parties responsible for writing to the blockchain and validating transactions. 88 | - Blockchain-based systems will likely become subject to increased regulation and supervision if they achieve scale (or if 89 | traditional networks or fiat currencies adopt blockchain technology), which likely will add costs for industry and higher fees 90 | for users. Even assuming widespread adoption, it is unclear whether claimed cost advantages would remain if blockchain-based 91 | activities are subject to regulatory requirements, similar to those that apply to other products and services. 92 | - Identity stored on the blockchain can be made available at every step of a transaction chain, which could eliminate the need for 93 | each financial institution involved in a transaction to conduct its own customer identification/verification, potentially reducing 94 | transaction and AML/CFT regulatory compliance costs. Blockchain technology may also allow an individual’s verified digital identity 95 | to travel with the person when establishing customer relationships at another financial institution regulated under the Bank Secrecy 96 | Act, potentially reducing onboarding costs. 97 | 98 | Benefit element 1: Non-Financial Benefits 99 | - Non-Financial 100 | - distributed ledger 101 | - immutable 102 | - Transparent (with rules) 103 | - Efficient (faster distributionof changes) 104 | - Secure 105 | - Single source of truth 106 | 107 | Benefit element 2: Financial Benefits 108 | - Financial 109 | - Open Source, no licensing costs. 110 | - Cost of reconciliation/ third party verification 111 | -Blockchain technology fundamentally transforms this cost by allowing, when a problem emerges, for costless verification. Any 112 | transaction attribute or information on the agents and goods involved that is stored on a distributed ledger can be cheaply 113 | verified, in real time, by market participants. Overall, for transaction attributes that can be reliably recorded on a 114 | blockchain, verification goes from being costly, scarce and prone to abuse, to being cheap and reliable. (from: Some Simple 115 | Economics of the Blockchain - Christian Catalini (MIT) and Joshua S. Gans (University of Toronto)) 116 | - Cost of network 117 | - In the case of blockchain, by reducing the market power of intermediaries, the technology also allows platforms to operate 118 | with lower barriers to entry and innovation. Whereas we had the ability to crowdsource ideas, talent and capital online for 119 | multiple years, existing solutions rely on a central clearinghouse to match demand and supply, maintain reputation systems 120 | and trust, and ultimately ensure the safety of transactions. In the current model, most consumers and businesses are 121 | renting resources on the internet, and do not own or control the digital and financial assets they rely on every day. The 122 | consequences of market power in these digital markets, including financial ones, range from higher prices and switching costs 123 | to higher privacy and censorship risk. If successful, the resulting platforms would shift us from a context where 124 | intermediary pledge to `not be evil', to one where they `can't be evil' in the first place. (from: Some Simple Economics of 125 | the Blockchain - Christian Catalini (MIT) and Joshua S. Gans (University of Toronto)) 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 | 130 | Summary 131 | 132 | 133 | 134 | References 135 | 1 - 136 | 2 - 137 | 3 - 138 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /economic-study/resources.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Resources 2 | 3 | Blockchain cost 4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2018/02/24/dont-let-blockchain-cost-savings-hype-fool-you/#171138da5811 5 | 6 | Blockchain storage cost - July 2017 7 | https://medium.com/ipdb-blog/forever-isnt-free-the-cost-of-storage-on-a-blockchain-database-59003f63e01 8 | 9 | Blockchain / Cloud (IEEE explore membership needed) 10 | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7930226/ 11 | 12 | Blockchain economics - June 2018 13 | https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/markus/files/blockchain_paper_v3g.pdf 14 | 15 | Economics of blockchain - March 2016 16 | https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2744751 17 | 18 | A study of pricing and trading model of Blockchain & Big 19 | data-based Energy-Internet electricity 20 | http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/108/5/052083/pdf 21 | 22 | SOME SIMPLE ECONOMICS OF THE BLOCKCHAIN (scroll to this title or see downloaded paper) 23 | http://blockchain.mit.edu/ 24 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /fibf/Outline.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 1. 7 categories – Blockchain Assessment 2 | Financial, Human Capital, Procurement, Grants, Travel & Expense, Law Enforcement, Health IT 3 | i. List of Potential Blockchain usecases 4 | ii. Detailed analysis of what the solution would look like / operating model 5 | 2. By August 31st – output 6 | 3. Impact on the Playbook – Addendum 7 | 4. Thu Afternoon 4 – 5. 8 | 5. Usecases 9 | a. Problem Statement 10 | b. Data 11 | c. Path for Input to outcomes for each area 12 | d. Structure for outcome focused 13 | e. Eco-system Impact 14 | f. Benefits 15 | g. High level Business Operating Model / Graphic 16 | 17 | Action Items 18 | 5/3/2018 19 | 1. Each of us take a category and list potential usecases and a sentence or 2 describing the use cases before the next meeting. 20 | a. Tina / Maia – Law Enforcement 21 | 22 | b. Mike Rice – Health IT 23 | Identity Management 24 | Medical Records Management 25 | Medicade Management Information Systems 26 | Benefites Administration 27 | Data Security 28 | Reimbursement 29 | Clinical Trial Management 30 | Pharmaceutical Supply Chain 31 | Research 32 | 33 | 34 | USE CASE : CDC Public Health -- Dr. Tom Savel 35 | 36 | Medical Device IOT 37 | ======= 38 | c. Venkat – Grants, Procurement 39 | Grants: Tracking of funds distribution down to the recipient 40 | This solution will connect the Financial and grants acquisition systems of the Federal Govermnemt agency with the systems of the state agencies, and further connect the recipient. The idea is to add every step in the processing of the grant and the 'spend pattern' of the grant into the blockchain giving the single world of truth at any time about a given grant. This will further help in reporting, and the data collected back can be analysed for spending patterns and other needs. 41 | 42 | Procurement: Procurement Lifecycle on Blockchain to enable accurate tracking of the procurement cycle, and milestones. 43 | Procurement: Financial lifecycle tracking relating to procurement of goods and services 44 | 45 | This solution will connect the Financial and acquisition systems of the Federal Govermnemt agency with the systems of the recipient company (aka vendor). The idea is to add every step in the processing of the procurement and the 'spend pattern' of the contract into the blockchain giving the single world of truth at any time about a given contract. This will further help in reporting, and the data collected back can be analysed for spending patterns and other needs. This will also help in maintaining a common source of truth about the execution of the procurement. 46 | 47 | d. Todd – Human Capital 48 | e. Rob – Financial 49 | FM: Leveraging standards and blockchain to accelerating payments resulting from completion of contracts 50 | FM: Managing finance and related data in a heterogeneous systems environment that combines commercial SaaS, legacy public sector on-prem systems, and centralized systems. 51 | FM: Interfacing w/payroll lifecycle to enable payments to staff, appropriate changes based on earnings/leave corrections, etc 52 | FM: Role of blockchain and standards in public sector FM audting during annual audit cycle and targetted audit/evaluation efforts. 53 | 54 | f. TBD – Travel & Expense 55 | 56 | Health IT 57 | Identity Management 58 | Medical Records Management 59 | Medicade Management Information Systems 60 | Benefites Administration 61 | Data Security 62 | Reimbursement 63 | Clinical Trial Management 64 | Pharmaceutical Supply Chain 65 | Research 66 | Medical Device IOT 67 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /new-technology-integration/Outline.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Other Technology Integration 2 | Technologies 3 | Complementing Technologies (Can stand on its own, but, enhance the business benefit of Blockchain if used in conjunction) 4 | 5 | CAL ZEMELMAN: 6 | 1. Machine Learning - artificial is the broad idea of teaching computers to think and act like an intelligent human. Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence that deals with training computers to spot patterns and create predictive models for the future. Within machine learning, there are the ideas of supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning. All of these might be useful for data. *Impact/Use Case:* 7 | Best Practices for ML: 8 | * Start small. 9 | * Use ML as Decision Support Systems, driven by simple rules (initially) 10 | 11 | Use Cases: 12 | * Blockchains with a wide variety of data are fertile ground for training machine learning models. Imagine your blockchain stores financial transactions and whether they were found to be fraudulent. You could use a supervised learning technique on data from the blockchain to build a model for detecting fraudulent transactions. 13 | 14 | 15 | 2. RPA - robotic process automation is the idea of using technology to have a program perform tasks that were previously done by a person. 16 | 17 | Best Practices 18 | * RPA should be considered for a process that doesn't change that often. Otherwise, the maintanance of the code becomes a bottleneck. 19 | * Choose the RPA tool appropriately. There are numerous tools out therre, understand the benefits of each before choosing the right one. 20 | 21 | Use Cases: 22 | * Imagine you have a legacy procurement system where purchase orders must be keyed in to a terminal application. You've also implemented a blockchain that stores procurement actions around your agency. You could create an RPA solution that read approved actions from the blockchain and automatically keyed them into the procurement system, reducing labor and increasing the accuracy of those POs. 23 | 24 | 3. Big Data Management (including data storage) - big data can mean many things but the classic idea is that new factors like data volume, velocity, and variability have proved difficult for traditional data processing solutions to handle and required new technology like Hadoop and Spark. 25 | 26 | Best Practices: 27 | * It is best to store and manage any Big Data requirement 'outside' the blockchain (off chain) and provide a pointer to it on-chain. 28 | * Access requirements to the data have to be resolved ahead of time. 29 | 30 | Use Cases: 31 | * While blockchain is great for certain use cases, it is _not_ a great solution for high data volumes or complex analytical queries. In other words, if you need to do deep analysis on your transactions, to handle more than a couple transactions per second, or store more than 100GB of data, you may want to pivot from exploring blockchain to a complementary big data solution. 32 | 33 | 4. Master Data Management (MDM) - a systematic way of handling important reference data for an organization that should be consistent to make it valuable. For example, if an organization does not have an standardized way of labeling customers but wants to do cross-cutting measures of customer service, they have a problem with MDM. If multiple parties or systems are participating in a blockchain, you must have good MDM in place or you will not be able to extract high quality information from your data. 34 | 35 | Best Practices: 36 | * Make the MDM part of the Governance Model and structure. 37 | * Define the MDM standards as part of the blokchain network design 38 | * Use MDM to guide the structure of the data / asset to be stored in the Blockchain. 39 | 40 | Use Cases: 41 | * If you plan on analyzing the data on your blockchain or using metadata about it for other purposes, you should investigate an MDM strategy to make sure your data remains of a high quality. 42 | 43 | 44 | VENKAT KODUMUDI: 45 | 5. Cybersecurity 46 | The work to address the controls described in and provided by the NIST 800.3, and FIPS 199 directives that govern Federal Government Systems and OWASP standards for commercial sector. Cybersecurity intersects with blockchain in a couple of areas. Design and development of the solution should follow best practices are built into the solution, not just to ensure compliance to the controls but to reduce risk. For example, public blockchains expose all transactions at a detail level so care must be taken with sensitive data. 47 | 48 | Best Practices: 49 | * Consult the blockchain playbook to decide on the right type of blockchain (e.g. public, private). 50 | * Conduct a standard audit of your solution design before implementation to ensure it is adequately secured. Blockchain does not remove security as a consideration from your IT system. 51 | 52 | Use Cases: 53 | 54 | 55 | 6. Archiving 56 | Archiving is *not* typically a feature of the Blockchain. As the number of blocks in the blockchain increases, the finite storage resources become dear to the success of the implementation. Archiving is normally one way to ensure enough storage is available for the operations of the system by moving a subset of data based on certain rules into an offline / somewhat difficult to access storage (also sometimes referred to as 'offline' storage). Archiving can get very complicated depending on the requirements. There can be tiers of archiving, such as semi-instantaneous access, and completely offline. 57 | 58 | If not designed or implemented incorrectly, lack of archiving can break a solution. It is espcially acute with blockchain as the entire premise is generally based on the fact that 'a blockchain' holds the single source of truth of everything that happened. 59 | 60 | Best Practices: 61 | * If you expect to have a lot of data (hundreds of GB or more), consider indexing or holding a _pointer_ to the large data in the blockchain. For example, if you wanted an immutable record of radiological images, your blockchain might store metadata about the image and a SHA256 hash of the file, while the actual images were kept elsewhere. 62 | * If you do need to support archiving, you could perform a hard fork and modify the software running the blockchain to exclude old blocks. 63 | 64 | Use Cases: 65 | 66 | 67 | 7. Smart Contract (??) 68 | Please refer to the selection secion of the playbook for a definition of Smart Contract 69 | 70 | 8. Messaging Protocols 71 | Messaging is used as a mechanism to transfer and transport data between systems that perform specific functions. The systems can be anything from entire applications to a small microservice that perform a specific function. Most of these systems can't operate in a silo and need to interact with other systems either to get data from or to give data to. In some cases, the messaging is as simple as just transferring data from one location to another, while in other cases complex transformation is performed to map the data to suite the destination system. RESTful web services are an example of a common message protocol and integration method. There are many messaging platforms such as Dell Bhoomi, Mulesoft Anypoint, and RabbitMQ. 72 | 73 | 74 | Best Practices: 75 | * Your blockchain system will likely not exist on a single node. Make sure you figure out how intra-process communications between the nodes will work to ensure the data is timely and accurate. 76 | * Your blockchain system will likely hold valuable data that others not participating in the blockchain will want to access. Make sure you figure out how inter-system and inter-organization communication will work. RESTful web service APIs are becoming ubiquituous for this purpose. 77 | 78 | Use Cases: 79 | * You may want to setup a blockchain for tracking supply chain movements of goods to guarantee certain requirements are met from initial sourcing. Some of the data is sensitive, so you cannot grant the general public access to the data which may contain sensitive technical specifications or pricing. Consider setting up an API with RESTful web services to allow the public to view a subset of the information or redacted information. 80 | 81 | 9. Identity and Access Management 82 | Identity and Access Management is the core 'entry' point into any application. It also serves as the gate keeper of user roles and responsibilities. 83 | 84 | Besides serving similar responsibiities for a blockchain solution, Identity Management can play additional role - in permissioned networks, it can serve as the gate keeper for on-ramping and off-ramping network participants. For permissionless networks, it can simply act as the keeper of the members wanting to connect. It can also serve as the algorithm and mechanism for assigning and tracking the nodes that validate, and write the blocks into the chain, and also those who want to serve as a 'decentralized node'. 85 | 86 | Best Practice: 87 | * Decide how your system is going to handle identity and access management. Is this a public blockchain anyone can join? If not, how will you confirm identity? Look into the mutual exchange of TLS certificates for system-to-system communications so that both parties can confirm the other party holds a private key matching the public key that they identify themselves with. 88 | 89 | Use Cases: 90 | 91 | 92 | 10. Geospatial or GEOINT - Geospatial, location-based application, and GEOINT, Geospatial Intelligence, are becoming more prevalent across all industries and allows for seamless sharing of constantly updated locational data. Integrating with Blockchain provides updated status of each asset and each contract along with verification and history for each. Geospatial and Blockchain integration improves a longstanding issue with the accuracy and currency of all geospatial source data. There are many use cases for Public and Private Blockchain integration with GEOINT. 93 | 94 | Best Practices: 95 | 96 | * Consider validation processes for open-source and public location assets versus proprietary, sensitive or classified location assets. In a public blockchain the validation process can take time. In the private blockchain the number of users can be restricted by invitation only and the rules of governing can be more easily changed by the administrators. Backtracking (correcting) transactions may be permitted by them quickly as malfunctioning nodes can be quickly spotted and repaired in a private blockchain. 97 | * Decide and assign roles along with identity and access management processes up front for public or private blockchains. 98 | * In the private blockchain space, identify a liaison to gain consensus with your mission partners on processes for validation for proprietary, sensitive and classified assets at the start. 99 | 100 | Use Cases: 101 | 102 | Law enforcement evidence can be tracked, fraud and abuse are more easily identified and trafficking of humans, weapons, drugs, wildlife and more can be affected by integrating GEOINT and Blockchain. When integrating Artificial Intelligence with GEOINT and Blockchain you can also manage your Internet-Of-Things and Facilities Management seamlessly. Validation and automation for the identification of persons, vehicles, structures, etc. from all types of location-based imagery is already underway. Some public and private geospatial blockchain use cases can include advertising and marketing, land transactions, street networks, terrain models, aerial or satellite imagery, LiDAR, UAVs like drones negotiating use of air space and geotagged blockchain election ballots. 103 | 104 | 105 | ##Adjacent Technologies 106 | (They can potentially replace Blockchain technology for specific uses) 107 | 1. Cryptography - the practice of obfuscating or encrypting information so it is no longer intelligible without a key. You can use cryptography to secure distributed pieces of information with much less overhead than blockchain. For example, imagine you have a compilation of text from different parties that changes over time, much like a GitHub repository. If each participant enables _signed commits_, GitHub uses public/private key pairs to verify that each contribution is from the party that the commit is contributed to. From a technical standpoint, this is much simpler than blockchain and is a service GitHub (and others) can offer as a free service. 108 | 109 | 110 | Best Practices: 111 | * As with any password / key, ensure the private key can't be stolen 112 | * Use the highest form of encryption available for the keys - for example SHA-256 113 | * A proper place to use this in lieu of Blockchain would be when you don't need a validation flow for the source of truth, and you are just storing the data securely. 114 | 115 | 116 | 2. Hashgraph 117 | Hashgraph is a new consensus alternative to the blockchain. It uses a gossip protocol that works in the following manner: Every node in Hashgraph can spread signed information (called events) on newly-created transactions and transactions received from others, to its randomly chosen neighbors. These neighbors will aggregate received events with information received from other nodes into a new event, and then send it on to other randomly chosen neighbors. This process continues until all the nodes are aware of the information created or received at the beginning. Due to the rapid convergence property of the gossip protocol, every piece of new information can reach each node in the network in a fast manner. 118 | 119 | Best Practices: 120 | * Consider the pros and cons of hashgraph vs blockchain as compared to your requirements. Do you expect the data to be widely distributed across the globe with intermittent connectivity? Do you need immutable blocks of transactions to support a business process? If so, that may cause you to trial one or the other. 121 | 122 | 3. Distributed Ledger (IPFS) / Distributed Databases - blockchain is built on top of a technology called distributed ledgers. The "block chaining" feature ensures groups of transactions are immutability linked to one another and is important in an adversarial environment. If you are looking into a system that only needs to exchange data with trusted parties or within an organization, blockchain is likely overkill for your situation. Look into services like Google Cloud Spanner which offers a globally distributed, highly redundant distributed database as a service. 123 | 124 | Best Practices: 125 | * A proper place to use this in lieu of Blockchain would be when you don't need a ordering / validation flow for the source of truth, and you are just storing the data in a distributed fashion. For example, when we talk about distribution of information such as the investment reports, where you aren't transferring an asset, a Distributed Ledger maybe worth investigating. 126 | 127 | ##Outline 128 | 1. Intro 129 | 2. Definition of the different technologies and categories 130 | 3. How does each technology integrate / interface with Blockchain 131 | 4. Impact / Benefit / Best Practices 132 | 5. Usecases and examples (one hypothetical usecase, with other examples) 133 | a. ConOps 134 | b. Reference Architecture????? – Nice to have 135 | 6. Conclusion / Takeaway 136 | High Level Timeline 137 | ETC – End of August (including review and approval) 138 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------