Free Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller by BMichaelsAuthor

like a
national employment agency?”
    “ Samantha, when do you
find time to read?” teased the General.
    Samantha replied coyly, “I find time
to do a lot of things.”
    Even over the phone,
Watkins was uncomfortable. He returned to the Blockchain as quickly
as possible. “So, BlockHR is a like an employment agency and
payroll processing company. But, they’re completely based on
Blockchain 2.0 technology. They use the Blockchain to record smart contracts.
Unless both parties agree, the digital contracts are unalterable.
The smart contracts function just like an executed legal agreement.
In fact, I think you’ll see a lot fewer lawyers in the future. ”
    General Shields howled. “Insert lawyer
joke here.”
    Watkins laughed, but only
because Shields was paying for his time. “BlockHR’s smart contracts
are agreements among the company, their employees, and their clients.
The software-based, smart contracts enforce those agreements—all
with minimal human intervention. Legally, BlockHR is a Distributed
Autonomous Company—almost like a robot company. They do have a
small management team, IT staff, and a sales force.
    “ Samantha, as you know,
BlockHR is one of the fastest growing startups in the world. Their
initial growth was due to revenue from all the sharing companies.
Now, many other companies are using them. I think they just closed
another round of VC funding, for something crazy like over
$1B.
    “ Back to Blockchain 2.0.
Anything that necessitates a middleman can either be made
more efficient, or eradicated by Blockchain 2.0. In my opinion,
Blockchain will be on par with the Internet as a force of
disruption. It’s going to change everything.
    “ For example, I just
bought a new BMW. I didn’t talk to a single person. The dealership bound the car
title to me on the Blockchain. They did that with a cryptographic
hashing algorithm. When a hashing algorithm runs against a block of
data, like the car title, it returns a result. This result is a
series of characters called the hash. The hash is like a digital
fingerprint that uniquely identifies the document.
    “ If the hash ever changes,
you know that something on the title has changed, even if it was
just a punctuation mark. So no one can steal the title of my car.
No modifications to the title can proceed without my approval.”
Watkins was so excited about Blockchain that he forgot who was on
the other end of the phone. He was explaining cryptography to the
boss of the best cryptographers in the world.
    “ Oh, I’m sorry General. I
didn’t mean to talk down to you.” Certifying hashing algorithms for
the DoD also fell under the purview of the NSA.
    “ Not a problem, Mr.
Watkins,” said Shields. “I’m sure they use a hashing algorithm from
the SHA-2 or SHA-3 family. By the way, did you know that hashing is the
best way to store passwords? When you create your password, the
hash should be stored, not the password. Later, when you log-on and
enter your password, the hashes are compared. Storing actual
passwords is a terrible security practice. Hackers can easily steal
them. If you ever call a company because you can’t remember your
password, and they give it to you, they didn’t hash the
passwords. They’re storing your password in plaintext.”
    General Shields winked at
Samantha.
    “ That’s fascinating
General. Thank you, ” said Watkins, sounding
embarrassed. “So continuing, I can use the Blockchain to prove my
ownership of the BMW to anyone in the world. The BMW’s title
history will be on the Blockchain for everyone to
see—forever. Because it reduces
the cost of so many types of transactions, Blockchain usage is
growing rapidly. It’s cheap because it’s
transparent, efficient, and there’s no middleman to pay. Or, at the
very least, the middleman ’s fees can be reduced .
    “ Back to BlockHR.
Let’s say; you use an employment agency to pay your Gamers. Typical
employment agencies charge a hefty markup on the