Blockchain ALL THE THINGS

Or: How the underlying technology behind Bitcoin is going to save our asses

Decentralized Ledger Systems Will Create a Renaissance in the Concept of Trust

Just a scant 4 weeks ago we found out that one of the largest store-houses of social security numbers and credit-reporting data — Equifax — was subject to a hack so extensive that we’re all still kind of reeling from it. The data for 1/3rd of all adult Americans can now be considered breached, and let’s be honest, do we even trust that the other two major firms, Transunion and Experian, did any better? Transunion’s website was hacked briefly on 10.15 to direct users to the same fake website that took over Equifax.

Wait wait. I’m actually getting ahead of myself. If you’ve been keeping up with the full play of this story, you’d know that Equifax actually got hacked July 29th. We plebeians just found out about it in September.

But wait again…can we even really be that upset with Equifax (hint: we can) when the idea of the social security number as a life-password is faulty to begin with? Your social security number is horrible for data security. Not only is it unencrypted, it’s purposefully non-random. The SSN refers to itself. Meaning that if you know what the numbers are referring to (date of birth, race, etc), you can guess the number even if you’re missing most of it.

Using the SSN as an identifier started due to the limitations of early technology as well as a wee-bit of laziness. Why make a new system when the government already had one mandated number for everyone?

Welp, the Equifax hack just took all of America and whacked it over the head with the realities of 2017. We’ve hit a crossroads where it’s safer to assume that all of our data has been hacked than not.

That’s a pretty damned scary thought, and the only question left is where to go from here?

Luckily, the answer to this problem has been staring us in the face and plastering the news for the past 10 years: Bitcoin. Or, rather the block-chain, which is the technology that underlies Bitcoin and makes it work.