Recently, the two hot words of blockchain and big data are being put together more and more. With the increase of various remarks, the relationship between the two has become confusing. Will blockchain integrate with big data? Will blockchain finally reshape big data? The onlookers expressed their desire to understand.
"To understand the relationship between blockchain and big data, we must first start from the difference between the two." The Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, who has been engaged in Internet technology research for more than 20 years and is known as the Internet technology expert Chang He Baohong threw out this point of view. He believes that there are certain commonalities between blockchain and big data technologies, but the technical processing methods of the two are more different.
He Baohong, Director, Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology
He Baohong said that blockchain technology is a new application mode of computer technology such as distributed data storage, point-to-point transmission, consensus mechanism, encryption algorithm, etc. The data processed by blockchain is smaller and is a meticulous processing method. Big data management is a massive amount of data, requiring breadth and quantity, and the processing method will also be rough, focusing on statistical analysis (as shown in the figure below).
"The biggest feature of this era is change." He Baohong believes that we are good at focusing on changes, but in fact, some things behind many changes are unchanged. For example - the laws of technology. Therefore, when discussing the relationship between blockchain and big data, we need to look beyond technology to technology.
Objectively speaking, as a subversive emerging technology, blockchain itself is not mature enough to be applied in big data scenarios, and further research is needed. And is blockchain possible to reconstruct big data? He Baohong believes that this possibility basically does not exist, because big data is for unstructured data, while blockchain deals with structured data. "The two have different target data and different problems to solve."
At the "2018 Big Data Industry Summit" to be held at the Beijing National Convention Center from April 18th to 19th, He Baohong will deliver a speech entitled "Foreseeing the 2018 of Big Data", discussing the development of technologies such as big data and blockchain. The laws behind it, as well as the market dynamics and trends in 2018 are forecasted. Below, the editor has collected Dr. He Baohong's recent wonderful views for everyone to raise their eyes and wash their brains in advance.
Blockchain: The Internet's "Big Patch"
Grassroots, global, autonomous, distributed, open, transparent, peer-to-peer, anonymous, sharing... Twenty years ago, people described the Internet in this way; today, these have become labels on the blockchain.
Why is this? "Blockchain is the development and continuation of the Internet, and a big patch of the Internet." He Baohong believes that the blockchain cannot subvert the Internet, let alone the world. If you have to think that the blockchain can subvert the world, you can only say that your world may be too small.
To face the blockchain, we can find many problems, such as: low performance, high energy consumption, ecological chain, security protection, privacy protection, lack of supervision, lack of standards, lack of business and so on. “In my 20+ years of internet-facing experience, any technology with these problems is a 'good technology', and these shortcomings can be overcome and solved over time. So, whenever someone criticizes the block When it comes to chaining these shortcomings, I would say that is typical of good technology.”
Compared with disruptive technologies such as blockchain, He Baohong believes that those technologies that are doomed to fail often have the following characteristics:
1. Claiming to be a cure for all diseases, but it is not clear what specific problems it hopes to solve in one sentence;
2. The concept is vague, the basic idea and principle of it cannot be clearly stated in one sentence, and the obvious difference or boundary with the existing technology;
3. Be prepared to start from the mainstream market, the most profitable market or the stock market;
4. It is necessary to establish an ecological chain centered on me (except for the second generation of technology rich);
5. It looks too perfect, there is no obvious trade-off, avoiding the technical price that needs to be paid;
6. Regardless of whether Moore's Law is supported;
7. The laws of economics are vague, and historical cases are far-fetched.
The essence of blockchain is a distributed ledger. He Baohong believes that distributed ledgers are "just needed". For the past few hundred years, we have been using a centralized accounting method, and there was no means to support efficient distributed accounting, until the emergence of the blockchain.
"Most of the technologies in adulthood live as they hate." The characteristics of the blockchain are decentralization, tamper resistance, and anonymity, but as it continues to mature and land, these characteristics need to be understood at a deeper level.
Distributed ≠ Decentralized
Distributed does not equal decentralization. "Most people who shout about decentralization want to become a new center." He Baohong took Bitcoin as an example. Its code is controlled by the Core team, and the computing power is highly concentrated. Meanwhile, one report shows that 40% of bitcoins are actually concentrated in the hands of 1,000 individuals, while another report says that 96.53% of bitcoins belong to 4.11% of addresses. Thus, with the development of blockchain, decentralization is becoming polycentric.
Tamper-proof ≠ unmodifiable
Tamper-proof does not mean immutable. In He Baohong's view, people make mistakes, and so can data. In the accounting system, it is not allowed to make false accounts but it is allowed to correct wrong accounts. In traditional database technology, modification is easy to achieve, so some management means are needed to prevent tampering. But today, blockchain technology is immutable, so what if the data is wrong? Therefore, it is necessary to add "modifiable" to the technology that cannot be tampered with.
Privacy ≠ Anonymity
Protecting privacy does not necessarily mean anonymity. He Baohong believes that anonymity is a method and means to protect privacy, but it is not absolute. The Internet more than 20 years ago was anonymous and globalized, no one could turn it off, shared and autonomous. Today, however, to log into a website, you need to enter a verification code to prove that you are a human, not a machine or otherwise.
Difficult to reach consensus on consensus mechanism
"It is difficult to have a consensus on the consensus mechanism." He Baohong said that we need consensus, but our consensus mechanism itself is divided and fragmented. We use POW to have more power and use POS to make more money. This is a typical "playing method" of transitioning from primitive society to capitalist society. Later, there was too much money and too many people, so DPOS was used to create an agent mechanism.
How the consensus mechanism forms a consensus belongs to the category of control level, and this consensus is particularly difficult. To have such a consensus, there must be a mother of consensus. A consensus must be preceded by a consensus to form a subsequent consensus. Consensus is also a chain structure, and trust is also a chain structure. Therefore, it is impossible to say that the blockchain is trustless.
Small industry, big change
From a technical point of view, the blockchain is to turn the original single ledger into the current multiple ledger. It turns out that there is a master-slave relationship between all databases, and there is only one ledger; today, there is a peer-to-peer relationship between multiple databases, and the ledger has changed from one to many.
From one accountant to multiple accountants, in the past, bookkeeping could be read, written, modified, and deleted. Today, only read and write bookkeeping. In the past, bookkeeping required salary payments to accountants and external incentives. Today, we can motivate ourselves; The business and finance of all companies are separated, and the payment process is particularly cumbersome; today's smart contracts are the integration of business and finance, which subverts many of our ideas.
In the past, code was technology; today, code has become a financial product, so new opportunities have emerged. In the past, data mainly referred to information, and technology was how to help it spread more widely; now that data is increasingly becoming an asset, the trend of technology will undergo great changes.
In the past, binary code expressed information; today, binary code expressed a property. Data is assets, and assets are data. When binary code represents assets, the core essence of technology must be protected, managed and controlled. The purpose of technology has shifted from maximizing dissemination to considering how to circle the code.
Blockchain is a small industry, a big change. What it subverts is the double-entry bookkeeping method at the bottom of our economy and economic operations. The double-entry accounting that we have used for hundreds of years has evolved into triple-entry accounting.
Guest profile:
He Baohong, a 20-year veteran of Internet research, holds a doctorate in computer science, works in the communications industry, and is the author of the book "Genes of the Internet". This lecture is mainly for middle and high-level enterprises, strategic researchers, engineers and uncles and sisters with technical backgrounds. Personal opinions are welcome to comment and share.
Past reviews:
He Baohong's "Genes of the Internet" Lecture Hall Past Courses
Foreseeing 2020, "Technical Face Master" will take you to do things together!
Why has Bitcoin become a "bumper"?
Say goodbye to scallions, open source five mature male models
Inspirational enough! Difficulty is also productivity
I don't tell the average person how to "face" the Internet technology?
Why does artificial intelligence have three "curves"?
These three reasons are driving the AI renaissance
Is the AI algorithm unreliable? The reason turned out to be...
Which is the most profitable AI new job?
What are the biggest risks facing AI companies?
Not only will it subvert the car, but autonomous driving will also redefine the road!
Do not worry! Turing-based AI won't outperform humans
In the next three years, big data will have a "tight life"
Do data circulation can win the "Nobel Prize"?
Proof of many great inventions - today is not the only DT era
In the era of big data, research "forgetting" is more promising
Three major trends in the cloud computing market in the next three years