Data storage solutions company Seagate Technology (Seagate), and IBM are reported to be working together and using blockchain and advanced cryptographic product identification technology to reduce disk-drive product counterfeiting.
What’s The Problem?
The problem for Seagate and other manufacturers, integrators, and business partners is the problem of counterfeit hard disk drives (HDDs) being made available for sale online. For example, these are usually sub-standard counterfeit drives, or old drives that have been re-labelled with false claims of higher speed and greater capacity.
The scale of the counterfeiting problem faced by electronics companies is illustrated by International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition figures which show that global trade in counterfeit and pirated electronic products is now worth more than US $1.7 Trillion!
What Is Blockchain and How Can It Help?
Blockchain, the open-source, free technology behind crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, is an incorruptible peer-to-peer network (a kind of ledger) that allows multiple parties to transfer value in a secure and transparent way. Blockchain’s Co-Founder Nic Carey describes blockchain as being like “a big spreadsheet in the cloud that anyone can use, but no one can erase or modify”.
IBM has considerable blockchain expertise and powered by the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric distributed ledger framework, IBM’s Blockchain Platform on the IBM Cloud enables network participants to append and view blockchain data.
The collaboration with IBM means that whenever Seagate manufactures a hard drive, it will update the IBM blockchain platform with product authentication data which will include each Seagate Secure Electronic ID (eID). This is a kind of electronic fingerprint that can verify the identity of a hard drive at any time during its product life cycle. Also, Seagate will use cryptographic erasure technology (Certified Erase) to electronically sign the drive using Seagate Secure public key infrastructure (PKI), and this data will also be added to IBM’s blockchain platform.
With all this unique product-identifying data stored in secure and incorruptible blockchain on IBM’s cloud, technology vendors, service providers and end users will (depending on the permission they have) be able to check a disk-drive product’s provenance on the blockchain.
The Results
The hope is, of course, that by being able to provide an indisputable record of events, from manufacturing through to end-of-life for Seagate’s products, this should reduce data loss, cut warranty costs, go some way towards tackling the counterfeiting problem, and improve customer confidence.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
This is another example of how businesses are only just beginning to realise the potential of blockchain and what it can offer. Blockchain has so far proven itself to be particularly useful in applications where authentication, provenance, and proof of different aspects of a supply chain are needed. For example, an IBM-based blockchain ledger has been used to record data about wine certification, ownership and storage history, and blockchain has been used to record the temperature of sensitive medicines being transported from manufacturers to hospitals in hot climates. It makes sense, therefore, that blockchain could be an ideal solution in the fight against counterfeiting of electrical and other products and items.
VMware recently joined Microsoft and other companies in offering a blockchain-as-a-service product to companies.
