As some of you might know I am a member of the Dutch chapter of ISC(2). This consortium has focus on Information Security in a broad perspective. From with this consortium I am CISSP certified (Certified Information Systems Security Professional).
I am part of the event commitee and from that 'function' I organized this event (together with two lovely ladies from my work). It was a 'after work' event, which means participants cam directly from works so we arranged some sandwiches for them to eat.
The show-up was great, about 100 persons visited the event so it was a success. There were three sessions which took about 45 minutes per session with different topics.
Technology behind blockchain
This session was presented by "Dappdesign" it is a dutch company which build Decentralized applications on Ethereum. They showed us how the technical side of the blockchain works. It was interesting to see. Unlike Bitcoin you are able to build your own coin on Ethereum, therefore many ICO's use Ethereum as platform / protocol / technology.
There came some great questions from the audience, one was about the mining and the energy that it uses. For instance, the mining of Bitcoin uses just as much energy as the whole country Danmark. That can be a problem on the longer time (besides the waste it perhaps is). The didn't have a very good explanation / argument for that. They did say that on the longer term other consuming processes like printing money, counting machines and so on will use less energy. Me personal thought that was not a very strong argument but ok, we will see what the future brings. Fact is that the power consumption is very high with mining and checking transactions.
The applicability of Blockchain in the real world
The second session was given bij Thijs Geurts and his session was all about the applicability of blockchain technology in real life. Steem is the perfect example :)...
A other example which I thought was a very nice one:
In Holland you have these services at local governments to help those families who are in need because the live under the social minimum, poor families. One of the services is that those families are entitled to receive 300 euro's per year to spend on sportclothing, memberhips or other things for the kids in that particular family. That is because the government want to prevent social isolation of those kids and kids have the right to practice a sport, which I think is very good. To proces of that service is (traditionally)
- The family sends in a form to the local government to apply for the service
- The government checks if they are entitled to
- After some weeks they confirm the entitlement
- The family picks up vouchers for the stores or club at the local city hall.
- The familiy spends the vouchers
- The store or club sends the vouchers to the local city hall
- Government checks if they are valid
- The store or club finally receives their money.
As you can see it is quiet long lasting proces, times between approval and actual bying something or becomming a memer of a club can take up to 8 or more weeks. Not very efficient.
The proces while being on the blockchain will be much more efficient.
- The local government does have already all the info about families who are entitled to get the extra money for the kids.
- The send a letter to the families with a wallet app and 300 coins representing the same value as 300 euro.
- The family visit a store who participates in the program
- The buy things and pay with the coin.
- The store sends the coins to the government and they pay the store in euro's.
As you can see much more efficient and quick. A lot of overhead is erased from the proces and the families are much more quicker served, for me a excellent example of the great oppertunities the blockchain technology can give .
Security and auditing the blockchain
The last session was given by a professor who gives college at the Nijenrode Univeristy. He warned us for the risks of the blockchain and the changes it will bring to some professions. For instance accountants will get a complete different role / line of work. In companies you normally have three kind of flows
- Material flow
- Administrative flow
- Financial flow
The administrative and financial flow will be one in the future. So the accountancy role will be more and more on a controlling level then really administrative tasks.
From security perspective a lot of security controls from the conventional view (as they are used now) are still actual using Blockchain. It's important to implement them at the right level ( at the door ) to avoid the "garbage in, garbage out' principle...
The blockchain got my attention much more, to know more about it's backgrounds, risks and compliance questions... My intention is to follow a class or two about Blockchain, these sessions opened my eyes about the possibilities... They are endless....
Well, I will try to write some more about the blockchain and the functionality in a short while :) So stay tuned !!!!
Have a great day
and 
, who are witness with their developer group 
for the Steem blockchain. If you want to support them, they would appreciate your vote here.They are the creators of Steemify, THE notification app for your Steemit account for IOS.
