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Topic: Can you put wrong information in Blockchain? (Read 271 times)

brand new
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September 02, 2018, 10:44:01 AM
#10
I always thought information on Blockchain are not reversible. Roll Eyes Thanks for the knowledge
legendary
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As I understand, one good analogy to explain Blockchain Technology is to think it just like a document wherein everyone can edit the file real-time and everyone can check the updated file (kindly correct me if my understanding is wrong).
I just want to ask, can someone provide a wrong input in the Blockchain?  What will happen if someone wants to input an error in the blockchain?  What are the counter measures?
That is really bad analogy. It doesnt represent blockchain technology even in one bit.
You can try put false information in blockchain, everyone can, but miners will verify that with their biggest on earth computing power Smiley good luck! Cheesy

Bitcoin is very resilient to any attack.
member
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I just want to ask, can someone provide a wrong input in the Blockchain?  What will happen if someone wants to input an error in the blockchain?  What are the counter measures?


Hello, since you are asking about the Blockchain (and not the Bitcoin Blockchain application), I think it depends on why are you using this. I don' t think any mined blocked can be deleted, but you can always add another one in which the information is corrected. For instance, you have this new in the newspaper: it has been already published, so you can' t just modified it in the case that the newspaper is already printed, so the only way of making any needed correction is to add in the next publication an "erratum disclaimer".
The blockchain works the same way, from my perspective: you can always modify a previous block by just adding new information to the next if corrections are needed.

Anyway, this seems to be a preoccupation for some developers. Since 2016 the idea of developing a Blockchain in which data could be changed was in a company called Accenture designing a new Blockchain model with such characteristics. Of course, it was not very liked by the community, I'm afraid, for it kind of goes against the crypto spirit.
You can read more about that in here: https://www.ft.com/content/f5cd6754-7e83-11e6-8e50-8ec15fb462f4

Now, regarding crypto, I don't think that the editing mode should be allowed, for it is against the mere existence of the Satoshi' s Blockchain idea. But this is just my opinion. The Accenture guys have their own in here: https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-perspectives-capital-markets-edit-blockchain-question
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Yes, sometimes it is possible. As this must be taken into account by developers of blockchains. There are several different mechanisms that are used to solve these problems, also know as consensus models. Each of them has own pros and cons, as well as ways to avoid and/or cope with such problems. In general, they try to do the following (please, read detailed technical articles if you need exact algorithms of their work):

  • One user perform a transaction
  • Several independent users check out (validate) the transaction
  • If all of them agree that transaction is legitimate, it is accepted and added into the blockchain
  • If all of them reject the transaction, it is considered false and is not added into the blockchain
  • If opinions diverge, there is a conflict that is solved according to a particular consensus algorithm, for example, by a majority of votes

Maybe you will be useful to read about possible attacks on the blockchain and ways of protection provided by different consensus models.
legendary
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Cashback 15%
There are rules in submitting your block or any information in a blockchain. If even one of these rules is circumvented and/or not followed, the nodes will automatically reject anything submitted to them so as to maintain the integrity of all the data stored in the chain. It works cleverly and fairly simple, like certain cells of the body which can only accept certain proteins/materials while rejecting anything that doesn't pass up to their standards/structure. It creates uniformity as well, so that the whole chain wouldn't be messed up and the new data stored is always following the data it precedes.
member
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The security of a blockchain is such that anyone who tries to put in the wrong information will be rejected and often kicked out. There is no benefit to purposefully trying to put wrong information on a blockchain, it will only hurt you in the end.
legendary
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Merit: 1360
Don't let others control your BTC -> self custody

I just want to ask, can someone provide a wrong input in the Blockchain?  What will happen if someone wants to input an error in the blockchain?  What are the counter measures?


Of course you can try to put false information there. Every time you send a transaction your wallet is propagating it in the network and putting it up for verification. If the information is false it will not get verified and that's it. No worries, there are no errors in the blockchain and false transactions just don't get verified and get dropped from the pool after a couple days without verification.
Even if you have a false node set to verify your own transactions all you will get is 1 verification and then it will go to another miner and get rejected by him. That's where 51% attack comes in. If you have most of the mining power you can get enough false verifications to push fraudulent transactions through. Nobody has managed to do it yet but in theory it's possible.
legendary
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There is trouble abrewing
"document" is a wrong analogy for blockchain. it is more like an actual "chain" because everything is connected to each other, every single byte of the whole thing is connected and if you change even 1 byte of it, the whole thing will become invalid and will be rejected by the rest of the network.

the blockchain is the chain of blocks, each block references the previous block and changing the previous one will make a new next block hash. each block itself consists of transactions which are again hashed and put in the block header and changing any transaction will make the whole block invalid. and each transaction itself consists of reference to a previous transaction (with the exception of coinbase tx) and signature + public key of that has signed the whole thing and changing the signature or changing the transaction will again make it invalid.

so you see it is not really possible to "input an error in the blockchain"!
legendary
Activity: 1946
Merit: 1427
As I understand, one good analogy to explain Blockchain Technology is to think it just like a document wherein everyone can edit the file real-time and everyone can check the updated file (kindly correct me if my understanding is wrong).

I just want to ask, can someone provide a wrong input in the Blockchain?  What will happen if someone wants to input an error in the blockchain?  What are the counter measures?


Well, there are certain "network" rules. I think you are referring to mining here, right?

If a miner tries to bypass these rules, say he tries to add a transaction in his block that isn't signed correctly, the nodes will simply reject his block, making all of his work invalid.

( Which would cost him a lot of money, hence why it doesn't really happen).

Most of these rules can be found here, https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_rules
member
Activity: 336
Merit: 42
As I understand, one good analogy to explain Blockchain Technology is to think it just like a document wherein everyone can edit the file real-time and everyone can check the updated file (kindly correct me if my understanding is wrong).

I just want to ask, can someone provide a wrong input in the Blockchain?  What will happen if someone wants to input an error in the blockchain?  What are the counter measures?
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