Johannesburg, 18 Apr 2018
Within the next five years, cryptographic anchors and blockchain technology will ensure a product's authenticity from its point of origin, to the hands of the customer.
This was revealed at the recent IBM Think 2018 conference held in Las Vegas. Researchers said that in some countries, nearly 70% of certain life-saving pharmaceuticals are counterfeit.
Andreas Kind, industry platforms and blockchain IBM research manager, says that the total value of counterfeit goods in 2015 was estimated to be $1.8 trillion.
Kind adds that the root of the problem is that global supply chains have become increasingly complex, and geographically spread out, with products consisting of parts produced in one area, assembled in another, and sold in a third. He adds that e-commerce also facilitates the sale of fake products.
He believes a logical solution to the problem could be a provident system consisting of a products database that could record information on everything that is happening when a product is shipped across the world. Technology such as blockchain can make this possible.
However blockchain alone cannot ensure the authenticity of physical goods - even though IBM has implemented this system within the food industry and trade documents, it isn't enough. Kind says the trust needs to reach into the physical world.
"We need anchors that link the cryptographic entries in these provident databases and the business processes with the physical objects in the real world."
This is why IBM researchers are developing crypto-anchors, which are tamper-proof digital fingerprints that can be embedded into products, or parts of products, and linked to the blockchain.
Crypto-anchors are highly secure and consist of cryptographic mechanisms that provide uncloneable identification.
These digital fingerprints can take many forms, such as tiny computers, or optical codes. And when they are tied to a blockchain, they represent a powerful means of proving a product's authenticity.
"We believe that crypto-anchors will halve the number of counterfeit goods that are linked to health and safety issues," says Kind.
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