Notarizing documents is a great example where some people think blockchain is a good use case, and it's never true.
Where would be the advantage of the scheme you describe to the current system? There is none. The system already works: people are given power to validate documents by the authority. The authority stores that centrally. The validation is mostly collected centrally. All stuff you can do perfectly fine without needing to run replicated servers storing an evergrowing immutable blockchain sipping authority from the real authority.
The current scheme allows things like secret notarization and revocation, stuff a blockchain is very bad at.
> it'll be up to the receiving agencies like England's government to decide "We trust the system the US uses to validate it's notiaries, so we'll add 'USRoxs' to our list of accepted Established Authorities (along with 'TheEnglish' of course)"
Countries already have systems in place to accept documents made in other countries. Works with official translators and stamps/seals of authenticity.
Notaries work differently in different countries; they emphasize different facets of a notary system.
In the U.S. notaries are traditionally decentralized, and a notary often maintains possession of their journals for years if not in perpetuity.
The primary functions of the notary in Common Law jurisdictions is the ceremonial and evidentiary value, not administrative value as in Civil Law countries. (All three functions matter in both systems.) Ceremonial because we can assume that when someone executes a notarized signature we can impute greater attentiveness to the contract. Evidentiary because the notary himself and the required third-party witnesses are (or should be) readily identifiable and available for questioning regarding the circumstances of the execution of the signature, including the authenticity and state-of-mind of the executor.
Plain signatures operate much the same way--we use them for their ceremonial and evidentiary value. It doesn't matter that a signature is easy to forge; the signature is a device for anchoring the act of consent to a concrete environment where we can begin asking and investigating pertinent questions as to authenticity and intent. In practice, the validity of signatures is rarely challenged in court. Either everybody agrees it's obviously or plausibly forged, or everybody agrees it's valid. But disputes regarding the circumstances surrounding the signature are endlessly varied. (Civil Law countries traditionally handle the problem by making notarized signatures the final and only word--non-notarized signatures have no value, notarized signatures cannot be repudiated. They sacrifice fairness for administrative efficiency. The trade-off between fairness and administrative efficiency is at the heart of most distinctions between Common Law and Civil Law systems.)
Public ledgers are not suitable substitutes for either of the above functions, whether according to the calculus of the Common Law or Civil Law systems. Arguably they're a step backwards. They're great for replacing all the other technical machinations of transactions except the most important ones--the ones that allow us to adjudicate disputes regarding intent and similar complex questions.
Notary services are expensive, and some notaries are corrupt. I'm no fan of bitcoin, etc. OTOH this does seem like a good blockchain application, and the fact that it doesn't burn a stupid amount of electricity is nice too.
I'm curious about secret notarization and revocation. Why is that particularly desirable? I guess it would be a poor fit for a blockchain indeed...
At least in the US generally notary services aren't expensive. Most states set upper limits for the per signature fee that can be charged. Of those that set a limit California is the highest at $15. Of the states that have a set limit the vast majority set it at $5 or less.
You can also often get free notarization at your credit union, public library, local government, church or through your employer.
Not my area, but think of things like a will. You being a billionaire maybe do not want to let your murderous family know that you made a new one writing them out of your will.
> Notary services are expensive, and some notaries are corrupt
A blockchain being the place where the act of bureaucracy ends up being stored changes nothing about that.
> OTOH this does seem like a good blockchain application
Exactly. It does at first, because it's about authoritatively storing information, and isn't this what a blockchain is good at? But then you think about how the system actually works and what the requirements are. A blockchain brings you immutable and decentralized storage of peer-validated information. None of these properties are of any value here. We just need a centralized storage that does not forget values by accident, which is basically every other solid information storing system. And most of those are a lot easier to run than a blockchain.
> A blockchain being the place where the act of bureaucracy ends up being stored changes nothing about that.
This is where a lot of blockchain concepts seem to break down. In most systems at some point you need to trust the data entered in by humans. But how can the members of the system be sure they can trust other members? Maybe certification or auditing by a trusted third-party? Oh, we're right back to where we started.
> think of things like a will. You being a billionaire maybe do not want to let your murderous family know that you made a new one writing them out of your will
Hash the will. Store the signed hash on the blockchain. Then, no one knows what the hash represents until your lawyer reveals the will after you've died.
What do you gain if the lawyer has to reveal it anyway? If you don't trust the lawyer[1], just give a hash of the document to the people who would be affected.
I don't see what role the blockchain plays here.
[1] and who's to say there aren't multiple signed hashes on the blockchain anyway?
> I don't see what role the blockchain plays here.
> [1] and who's to say there aren't multiple signed hashes on the blockchain anyway?
The timestamping of the blockchain is the use case. If multiple signed hashes exist, the latest one supersedes all the previous.
> What do you gain if the lawyer has to reveal it anyway? If you don't trust the lawyer[1], just give a hash of the document to the people who would be affected.
I'm afraid I don't understand. Who would hold the original text of the document in your plan?
Edit: Nevermind, I see what you mean, here. I see the issue as one of public record. If there was a revision to the will which no one in the family liked, and benefited some estranged cousin of yours who lived in another country, the family and the lawyer could conceivably hide the new will and the fact that you were dead from this cousin. Having it all on the blockchain prevents this.
The chances of a document making sense as a will and matching SHA and MD5 hashes placed in a blockchain must be infinitesimal.
The blockchain places the production of the hashes in time; in this case showing that - all else being equal - this will supersedes any previous wills.
Proving things existed at a particular date is important for contracts, wills, IPR, and such.
It doesn't solve everything, you could have a collusion between relatives and lawyers such that they created multiple blockchain entries. But the blockchain would show, for example, if they did it after the subject had died. The relatives would also need to buy off those running the public blockchain, and not just the deceased's law firm, in order to get a legal attestation -- and audits would show the public servants lied. Auditors can be bought off too, no system involving people is perfect.
>Notary services are expensive, and some notaries are corrupt. I'm no fan of bitcoin, etc. OTOH this does seem like a good blockchain application, and the fact that it doesn't burn a stupid amount of electricity is nice too.
Seriously? Most US banks and credit unions have free notaries for their members. And otherwise is around $5 elsewhere for a simple document.
Where would be the advantage of the scheme you describe to the current system? There is none. The system already works: people are given power to validate documents by the authority. The authority stores that centrally. The validation is mostly collected centrally. All stuff you can do perfectly fine without needing to run replicated servers storing an evergrowing immutable blockchain sipping authority from the real authority.
The current scheme allows things like secret notarization and revocation, stuff a blockchain is very bad at.
> it'll be up to the receiving agencies like England's government to decide "We trust the system the US uses to validate it's notiaries, so we'll add 'USRoxs' to our list of accepted Established Authorities (along with 'TheEnglish' of course)"
Countries already have systems in place to accept documents made in other countries. Works with official translators and stamps/seals of authenticity.
In better and funny: Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15RTC22Z2xI