Seagate Technology and IBM are working together to reduce product counterfeiting with the use of blockchain and security technologies. The project, designed to help manufacturers, integrators, and business partners fight counterfeit hard drives, uses the IBM Blockchain Platform to authenticate the provenance of disk drive products, bringing a new level of multi-layered security protection to the data management industry.
Seagate will update the IBM Blockchain Platform on the IBM Cloud with product authentication data based on the Seagate Secure Electronic ID at the point of manufacture to verify product authenticity. Each unique identifier can be used to verify the identity of a hard drive at any time during its product life cycle. Seagate’s Certified Erase employs cryptographic erasure technology to produce a digital certificate of data purge, which is electronically signed by the device under the Seagate Secure public key infrastructure and stored on the blockchain for compliance management with emerging global data privacy laws.
Building upon IBM’s blockchain expertise and powered by the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric distributed ledger framework, the IBM Blockchain Platform is designed to allow network participants to append and view blockchain data based on their level of permission. Throughout a product’s life, technology vendors, service providers, and end users will be able to confirm the product’s provenance on the blockchain, which provides an immutable record of events.
In July, IBM won a five year AUD 1 billion contract with the Australian government to provide data security-enhancing technologies, including blockchain, artificial intelligence and automation. The application of IBM’s technologies across federal departments, including defence and home affairs, could save the country’s taxpayers AUD 100 million.
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