Topic: Question related to private data storage in blockchain (Read 1505 times)

I do not worry. I play short. 

I was also considering maybe sidechain is the solution.
But after reading sidechain whitepaper here comes the problem again.

The data is only protected by the hash power of that sidechain, not bitcoin blockchain.
Indeed if sidechain is implemented we can move coins between chains without any problem, but a sidechain is only a sidechain. That is, the data stored in sidechain is not as safe and secure as that stored inside bitcoin blockchain.
So people with data storage and notary needs will still ask bitcoin blockchain for ultimate safety, right?

This is a huge problem for Bitcoin. All the cool blockchain based ideas won't work with it without fudging together transactions which are then used in a way Bitcoin wasn't designed for.

Don't worry though, another blockchain based system will come along and provide all these features.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin and that's about all it's good for at the moment, the sidechains thing might change this but I have a feeling this is some time away.

I am absolutely negative of these.
Blockchain is too expensive to store data when the hashrate grows.
Blockchain is not secure to store data when hashrate will decrease.

Thanks for your reply ca333!
Your thoughts are really appreciated.

There has long been debates over whether we should put non-tx data in the blockchain, and that is very interesting, and sometimes leads to creative tools and systems.

Before blockchain was invented by Satoshi, there has been other ways of achieving those goals that mentioned in the blog.
For instance why not just do it the plain old ways, like encrypting data with Symmetric or Asymmetric encryption, and then share them with others via some software?


I'm wondering what is the point of putting those data, say personal / medical / insurance data, into the bitcoin blockchain, then send the private key.

Compared to the traditional means, what gain will we have apart from that the data is being duplicated to full nodes all over the network (yes, the data is permanently recorded in history, but that also comes with cost - a lot of data == a lot of fee, and many may criticize the blockchain bloat incurred) ?


I am absolutely positive of the bright future of bitcoin and blockchain. And I believe people will definitely come up with many clever ways of applying this great technology. But right now those cheerful words from the blog / book about purpose of storing medi-research data in blockchain is still too vague for me to understand.

I think this mean you can put the information in the blockchain, but you don't add personal-data (name, social insurance ID,etc.). Only necessary information (i.e. from above: health data, clinical-report, age of the patient, etc.) is then stored in blockchain and can be analyzed by doctors and medi-research.


relating to above example i think when you store such data in encrypted format(with personal data), so you then can give the priv-key of encryption to the doctors and the doctors can then decrypt it to use the information. In this example you have data stored coded. so nobody can read it in the chain. But only the person with the privkey can read it.. so you only are "giving up" the data to who you want to be able to read it...


I think this comes in the future. But maybe in medi-research and alternative opensource communities with relation to medical projects.
Problem is when it comes to pharmaindustry its VERY PROFITORIENTED.... not always oriented in optimization of a process.
I think adapting a blockchain and make its parameters for this purpose can give other options. In example: The patient or owner of medical data or other private data to stored in the blockchain have his private-key and NEVER give it somebody else. But the doctor have a public key which is able to receive the data from a patient. So the data remain private @patient untill patient transfer it to PublicKey of doctor.
So this is maybe one option.. But i think many many other concepts can work for this.

Also i like this discussion, its interesting topic!
thank you!
ca333

I have been fascinated by bitcoin and blockchain, and kept searching the tech and non-tech aspects about them.

Recently from a blog (http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2014/09/blockchain-health-remunerative-health.html) describing the potentials of blockchain,
I've read something as follows:


These paragraphs also appeared in the book by Melanie Swan: Blockchain : Blueprint for a New Economy (oreilly)

I'm wondering how exactly would saving data in blockchain help solving those problems.
(1) By storing data in blockchain, that data will become notaried, immutable.
But how would that achieve the goal of "can be analyzed but remain private".
Especially that in reality, we can only afford to save hash of data (maybe with a adapter layer like factom.), not original data, in blockchain.

(2) Giving up private key to third party to make sure privacy and access control
By doing that, we are actually giving up everything to the third party.
How is that ever gonna work?

Or maybe the blog is not referring bitcoin blockchain, but some alt coin's (like the healthcoin author mentioned)  alt blockchain that's not yet designed and implemented.

If it is actually doable with bitcoin blockchain, please help and share some thoughts.

Thanks!