Blockchain enabling paperless, tamper-proof CBSE results
Technology
Recently, The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in India introduced a blockchain-based system in order to go completely paperless, and deliver secure, transparent and tamper-proof result certificates to its students.
CBSE has collaborated with the Centre of Excellence for Blockchain Technology of National Informatics Centre (NIC), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), to create the Academic BlockChain Documents (ABCD) software.
How is CBSE planning to use it?
CBSE has established this blockchain network with nodes at Bengaluru, Pune and Jaipur. Data starting from 2019 has been recorded, and other data of previous years will be uploaded gradually. In 2016, CBSE was the first to develop its own academic repository named ‘Parinam Manjusha’.
“Earlier we introduced Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) for affiliation systems. Here, the data is linked and stored with cryptographic security so that it is immutable and traceable." - CBSE Director of Information and Technology, Antriksh Johri
More than cryptocurrency
Blockchain technology was originally described in 1991 by a group of researchers and was intended to timestamp digital documents to remove the possibility of back-dating them or tampering with them.
However, it went mostly unused until it was adapted by ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ in 2009 - to create the digital cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
While often equated with cryptocurrency, there is a lot more to blockchain than just that.
Distributed ledger completely open to anyone
In the technical sense, blockchain is a persistent, transparent, public, append-only ledger wherein you can add data, but cannot change any previous data in it. This is done through a mechanism that creates a consensus amongst distributed parties, creating a peer-to-peer network, that might not have to trust each other but instead trust the process itself.
This ‘decentralization’ of storing and processing data ensures randomness which further makes sure that no one can force an entry into the blockchain if other parties disagree with it.
How is it so secure?
There are basically two major principles governing its safety:
1. Each block in a blockchain contains three essential parts:
The data is stored inside a block.
The hash of the block, which is like a unique fingerprint of the block.
The hash of the previous block, and all of these together effectively creating a chain of blocks. It's this technique that makes a blockchain so secure.
2. Since computers nowadays can easily calculate hundreds of thousands of hashes per second, making this structure is prone to tampering. So, blockchains employ a concept called proof-of-work which ensures that if one block is tampered with, you'll need to recalculate the proof-of-work for all the following blocks.
FOR
Secure Peer-to-peer network
Blockchains secure themselves is by being distributed in a peer to peer network, instead of using a central entity to manage the chain. When someone joins this network, a new node is created and a full copy of the blockchain is shared with that particular node.
If someone wishes to add or change any data in the blockchain, each node verifies its authenticity to make sure the data isn't being tampered.
Other uses
Researchers believe that blockchain is going to emerge not just as a stand-alone field, but as an interesting synergy driver between other developing areas like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). Maybe together this concept might be the next revolution after the internet for the 21st century.
Other possible applications can be in the development of smart contracts. The technology can also be used for other things like storing medical records, creating a digital notary, or even collecting taxes.
AGAINST
Unrealistic fantasy
One of the major problems with blockchain right now, especially in regards to the cryptocurrency aspect, is that this concept is presented as something with a lot of hype, depicting enormous potential while malicious opportunists have hijacked it into pump and dump scams or gold rush schemes.
This initially creates an unrealistic fantasy of getting rich and when it crashes really soon, it makes the average person disappointed.
Rigidity and energy concerns
The application of blockchain in distributing marksheets or creating digital legal contracts is - tackling the human error condition. With blockchains data is immutable/unchangeable. The rigidity of the structures might not accommodate real-life scenarios like error corrections or negotiations.
There is also the issue of energy and cost efficiency which makes the sustainability aspect of this tech a bit shaky. Public blockchains need to run proof-of-work verifications which consume a huge amount of energy and cost.
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