Is blockchain a security topic? (Opensource.com)

At Opensource.com, Mike Bursell looks at blockchain security from the angle of trust. Unlike cryptocurrencies, which are pseudonymous typically, other kinds of blockchains will require mapping users to real-life identities; that raises the trust issue. "What's really interesting is that, if you're thinking about moving to a permissioned blockchain or distributed ledger with permissioned actors, then you're going to have to spend some time thinking about trust. You're unlikely to be using a proof-of-work system for making blocks-there's little point in a permissioned system-so who decides what comprises a "valid" block that the rest of the system should agree on? Well, you can rotate around some (or all) of the entities, or you can have a random choice, or you can elect a small number of i1/4ber-trusted entities. Combinations of these schemes may also work.If these entities all exist within one trust domain, which you control, then fine, but what if they're distributors, or customers, or partners, or other banks, or manufacturers, or semi-autonomous drones, or vehicles in a commercial fleet? You really need to ensure that the trust relationships that you're encoding into your implementation/deployment truly reflect the legal and IRL [in real life] trust relationships that you have with the entities that are being represented in your system.And the problem is that, once you've deployed that system, it's likely to be very difficult to backtrack, adjust, or reset the trust relationships that you've designed."