Blockchain, IoT, & Bad Government

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AdamMarks78
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:42 pm

I came across this great article on the future of legal systems on Medium. One of the most interesting aspects of it to me was the discussion of smart contracts and IoT. So far, I haven't done a huge amount of research on them. Though I have seen them discussed in relation to the Artist's Contract.

While I think there's a lot of potential there. I also wonder about how the ubiquity of IoT technology could be misused. I mean, it's great if a company could stop a car from working when the owner quits paying his loan back. Here's what the author says:
In his 1996 seminal article, Szabo illustrated smart contracts with a car that stopped working when the buyer failed to pay back the loan. For this to happen, we need higher adoption of smart locks, electronic locks that respond to orders encoded in smart contracts. Widespread adoption of smart locks will enable a house rented on Airbnb to unlock the door automatically when the payment is done, as well as many more applications in the sharing economy.
But isn't there also the possibility of governments using this technology to oppress/control people? What safeguards are there to keep malevolent actors from getting access to things?
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