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Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are putting edible microchips the size of a grain of sand into their 90-pound cheese wheels to combat counterfeiters (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 3 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are putting edible microchips the size of a grain of sand into their 90-pound cheese wheels to combat counterfeiters::Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are using microchips to verify the authenticity of their products and thwart scammers.

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[–] 114 points 3 years ago (3 children)

The chips use blockchain technology and trace the wheel of cheese back to where the milk that was used came from.

Cryptobros, Unite! We finally found a way for blockchain tech to be relevant for more than just ransomware! We authenticate cheese!

Someone's gonna make a ton of money on CheeseCoin

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  • [–] 33 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Blockchain is also good for solving the Ship of Theseus problem. You can encode the entire history of the object into the object.

    Blockchain has many cool uses and none of them are currency.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I mean, the ship of Theseus isn't a problem, nor is there a solution, but I get the joke anyway :)

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  • [–] 30 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Blockchain =/= crypto

    Crypto uses blockchain, but blockchain is just a different type of database that generally tracks data through a decentralized network. It has a lot of real uses beyond crypto like identity verification, transcript/records management management, and iot data sharing. It’s nothing that can’t be done in a centralized manner, it’s just a different way of going about it that, in some cases, is much more secure and/or much more easily accessible.

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  • [–] 24 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    It’s nothing that can’t be done in a centralized manner,

    and thats the main problem with basically all blockchain related solutions, theres pretty much always a centralized alternative thats more efficient

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    and much more.... centralized? But let's also just ignore the part where it's described as generally more secure as well.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago

    The cheese makers are not concerned about decentralization. Presumably they trust themselves, because they are the only ones trusted to write to the database. If they are the only ones allowed to put something on the chain, it's a central database, regardless of how many computers/places they run it on.

    Blockchain is not magically more secure than any other equivalent cryptographic solution.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    and much more… centralized?

    it being centralized dosent mean its bad. theres also the fact that many processes are centralized by the nature of how they work.

    it’s described as generally more secure as well.

    why would that be?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    What corporation which validates their supply chain for authenticity is not already centralized? It literally makes no sense when the official manufacturer and logistics partners are all known, at that point you may at best want "transparency logs" but not blockchains. They're not even intended to stay authenticated on a second hand market, so there's no need to be able to keep tracking their movements after first sale

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