Airplanes are cool. They look cool, especially the older WWII era planes with their big curves, art work and the way they always look like they just came back from a fight. And of course, they fulfill man’s long-time dream of being able to fly without having to worry so much about falling to the sea like Icarus.
What would make them even cooler? Blockchain. Now, you might be asking how exactly that works. Isn’t blockchain only for cryptocurrency? Nope, blockchain is potentially far more versatile than that with applicability for all sorts of industries. So, what’s the application here?
One of the things blockchain technology is known for is its ability to securely track information, allowing users not only to transfer information but to verify its authenticity. This is already beginning to happen with check-in procedures. Airlines are faced with an incredibly daunting task; they need to keep their customers’ personal data private while also running background checks to ensure they don’t pose a terrorist threat. Blockchain allows the airlines to take that dilemma by the horns and encode fliers’ personal data in such a way that the airline can access it without its being able to be accessed by an outside source or falsified. With blockchain, it should even be possible to tie that information to a code on your passport that lets the TSA person scan it in order to verify you are who you say, while also running a secure check to make sure you have stayed out of trouble since the last time you flew.
Baggage tracking could also be helped. Yes, the airlines already track baggage and generally do an adequate job at it. However, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Tagging your favorite piece of Samsonite with a blockchain code allows it to be kept track of at least as well any current system. However, that data can still be lost or faked unless it’s part of the blockchain. In this system, a number of nodes all around the world actually record all the encoded information and verify themselves against the other nodes. With copies all around the world, this system would be very difficult to break into and alter any of its data.
That same feature, having the data in multiple locations is a big deal for all sorts of aviation data. Even something as simple as location data can benefit from being recorded in multiple nodes. Rather than having it all in one or two servers that can lose data when they crash, they can be in hundreds or thousands of nodes. Even if half of them crash, the other half are still there with a nice clean copy of their data. All of this makes it easier to avoid a situation like the lost Malaysian flight MH370. When that flight went missing, kicking off a massive search and months of news coverage part of the problem was that investigators couldn’t locate the flight data.
This directly relates to all sorts of other data, even data stored in the much-vaunted black boxes. While they might be incredibly tough and can practically survive having a nuke dropped on them it doesn’t matter if the one you need is at the bottom of the ocean. Imagine instead that information is also getting streamed to a secure blockchain network, so if a plane goes down you don’t have to spend resources hunting down that box, you already have all the data.
Naturally, we at TARTLE are big fans of these kinds of moves. Anything that helps make data more secure and more available is right in line with our mission to use data to build a better world.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
One of the things blockchain technology is known for is its ability to securely track information, allowing users not only to transfer information but to verify its authenticity.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:24):
Planes, trains, and blockchain.
Jason Rigby (00:28):
I love that.
Alexander McCaig (00:30):
Oh, the aviation industry.
Jason Rigby (00:33):
Ooh.
Alexander McCaig (00:33):
This seems awfully interesting. Why would there be such a push in aviation to go towards blockchain technology? Well, we realized the obvious benefits and it's nice that our fellow members that reside under the FAA umbrella, them taxi us back and forth across the skies at 40,000 feet are starting to realize that there are a lot of enhancements to security and tracking that are quite beneficial within airlines that can be applied with blockchain.
Jason Rigby (01:02):
I want to get into something really cool though first, before we hop into this-
Alexander McCaig (01:06):
Yeah, go ahead.
Jason Rigby (01:07):
... payment transactions and flight data and all that. Why are planes so cool, bro?
Alexander McCaig (01:12):
Why are planes so cool?
Jason Rigby (01:14):
As a kid, I mean, I'm a boy, a boy at heart. I've got planes-
Alexander McCaig (01:18):
Yeah, look at them all.
Jason Rigby (01:19):
I got them up here-
Alexander McCaig (01:19):
You got tons [crosstalk 00:01:21].
Jason Rigby (01:20):
Dude, there's something about going to like-
Alexander McCaig (01:24):
Airshow?
Jason Rigby (01:24):
An airshow and then when they have the old planes opening, you start walking through, just the look of... Like even fashion designers, designing watches off of an old altitude, what do they call those? Altimeters.
Alexander McCaig (01:38):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (01:39):
Just doing so much cool things with this and then like the World War II paintings on the planes.
Alexander McCaig (01:44):
I love it. Yeah.
Jason Rigby (01:46):
Pinup girls.
Alexander McCaig (01:47):
Like the pinup girls and stuff.
Jason Rigby (01:48):
Yeah, just art.
Alexander McCaig (01:49):
Really interesting. There was character to it.
Jason Rigby (01:52):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (01:53):
Now you look at the new like F22 Raptors. There's no character.
Jason Rigby (01:56):
It's all sleek, little...
Alexander McCaig (01:58):
Sleek, little, you know.
Jason Rigby (01:59):
Yeah, I was watching the new Russian one. I forgot the name of that one. They have a new one. And absolutely I'm like, a plane can do that? It went and then came up. I don't know if you can see this. When it came up and then stopped, like it that. It came down onto the ground-
Alexander McCaig (02:16):
So it wound up into a stall?
Jason Rigby (02:17):
Stopped like that.
Alexander McCaig (02:18):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (02:18):
Like 10 feet off the ground. And then just full afterburner.
Alexander McCaig (02:24):
You telling me he went up into a stall, set it back down just above the ground.
Jason Rigby (02:27):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (02:27):
And an afterburner back up.
Jason Rigby (02:28):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (02:30):
Snap.
Jason Rigby (02:30):
It's on YouTube. Yeah. It's just crazy,
Alexander McCaig (02:32):
Snap.
Jason Rigby (02:32):
Good Russian pilots [crosstalk 00:02:34].
Alexander McCaig (02:33):
I fly airplanes. And I couldn't even imagine doing that.
Jason Rigby (02:36):
It's the Putin's brand of his vodka that probably gets them riled up. I wonder how many Russian pilots we need to know this. Wonder how many Russian pilots are on vodka when they're flying jets.
Alexander McCaig (02:47):
Well, we know in the US they take go pills.
Jason Rigby (02:49):
Yes. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (02:50):
And in Russia they drink vodka before they fly.
Jason Rigby (02:53):
This is not... No scientific data on this.
Alexander McCaig (02:55):
We have zero. We're speculating on the Russian stimuli.
Jason Rigby (03:00):
We need to ask all Russian pilots if they do [crosstalk 00:03:02].
Alexander McCaig (03:02):
We need a data packet to, yeah, to Russian pilots. Gosh, Russia's huge.
Jason Rigby (03:08):
And cool.
Alexander McCaig (03:08):
Okay. We're totally sidetracked.
Jason Rigby (03:10):
No, but why do you think we love-
Alexander McCaig (03:12):
Airplanes?
Jason Rigby (03:13):
Airplanes, especially as little boys?
Alexander McCaig (03:17):
Not to just strictly apply it to a gender, but there's just like a... I guess my experience is different. Both you and I have a different experience. We've both been in airplanes and helicopters.
Jason Rigby (03:34):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (03:34):
Okay? I've flown both. And there is a little bit of a rush, mixed with a sense of freedom and a view over the world. Here's what it reminds me of. Back in Ancient Egypt, there was a great respect for the hawk, right?
Jason Rigby (03:56):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (03:57):
Or the desert eagle, either way you wanted to call it. And it was always up in the sky watching. And they thought that this thing that had this bird's eye view was the closest thing to the sun got itself rah.
Jason Rigby (04:08):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (04:08):
So there was always just this mesmerization. And when you were somewhere and a hawk was encircling over you, it was almost like rah, that God was watching over you. It was a very important aspect, but it's always fundamental when you watch birds flying in the sky. There's something about that, that humanity is always connected with. But when you go to look at a plane, it's like, man has stepped into that same position where nature has evolved for millions and millions of years to do something quite naturally. We have now met it in the skies, and we've always been on the ground. And to elevate yourself to the skies, to give you that view changes your perspective on the world. Much like when an astronaut leaves the earth and they look back at it and you ask them about their stories, their perspective on humanity-
Jason Rigby (04:50):
Yes. Yes.
Alexander McCaig (04:50):
... only when they've seen the earth from outside its atmosphere. Very special things happen at that point. But when I look at a plane, when I roll out and that means when I've hit my airspeed where it's just enough, I'm in the green zone and there's enough wind going over the top and the bottom of the wing to generate lift, it's the most pleasant feeling in the world, right there at that point. And even for an individual that gets in an airplane, they go for take off, they're going on travel vacation, that moment when you roll out, you feel the nose start to pick up-
Jason Rigby (05:20):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (05:20):
And the pilot takes off... Just imagine if you were the person doing that. But it's amazing to watch the mechanics and the action of flight occur. And I don't know if it's like a subconscious sense of freedom that we get when we see a bird or a plane actually occurring, but it fires me up.
Jason Rigby (05:35):
Yeah. And then the safety in the aviation industry is absolutely phenomenal.
Alexander McCaig (05:39):
Yeah. Everyone thinks planes are unsafe, but really it's more unsafe for you to get in a car.
Jason Rigby (05:43):
Way unsafe.
Alexander McCaig (05:44):
You're more likely to get bit by a shark.
Jason Rigby (05:45):
If you ever want to see how many planes... Siri does a thing where you can ask how many planes are overhead and there'll be like 20, 30, 40 planes overhead constantly 24/7.
Alexander McCaig (05:56):
You're kind of like, "What?" Like, I don't even see them all.
Jason Rigby (05:58):
Yeah, I don't see any of these. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (05:59):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (05:59):
And it's just the amount of travel back and forth that these planes are doing constantly. The average commercial airline is going three or four times a day back and forth to that same destination. That same plane, they're just putting people in, next, putting people in, next. It's a workhorse. Yeah, it's a workhorse and it's just ultra safe.
Alexander McCaig (06:16):
So here's Uber-
Jason Rigby (06:17):
Speaking of safety-
Alexander McCaig (06:18):
Yeah, speaking of safety. Uber essentially changed how the cab service worked.
Jason Rigby (06:24):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:26):
The airline industry needed that. And blockchain is just one step into evolving an old process that was essentially inefficient debunked and lacked the security standards that are currently available today.
Jason Rigby (06:39):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (06:40):
So they're starting to step into that by applying the functions of block... We don't want to get into blockchain. We have plenty of episodes on it, but I will talk about the focal points that the airline industries are going to focus on by employing this sort of decentralized, trustless, ledger technology.
Jason Rigby (06:58):
Yeah. Let's start with number one, secure flight data.
Alexander McCaig (07:01):
Yeah. Secure flight data. Right? So a lot of this data sits in black boxes or for instance... So if you don't know what a black box is, if an airplane gets in a crash, all the telemetry data, all final recordings, everything like that is stored in this centralized little box that can get lost in the bottom of the ocean. Right?
Jason Rigby (07:18):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:19):
It has a tracking beacon, but that can fade out, albeit quite reinforced, but it's in a centralized area.
Jason Rigby (07:25):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:26):
And you've centralized it on the plane. So what happens if you crash in the ocean, like the Malaysian flight?
Jason Rigby (07:29):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:30):
Where the heck is it in the bottom of the ocean? The ocean is huge. You can also have a current that's happening under the water. It could have drifted it off many, many miles. And then the search area becomes impossible. But if you decentralize that with blockchain, essentially, every plane becomes its own node... You've got wifi in planes now.
Jason Rigby (07:45):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (07:45):
There's no reason they can't be a part of that blockchain ledger. So with that, we can actually store or write that data to the blockchain where it's completely encrypted, no one's looking at that important information-
Jason Rigby (07:57):
And can be done while they're flying in real time.
Alexander McCaig (07:59):
Right. It can be done flying in real time. And it also reinforces the security and the longevity of that data. And it doesn't put its reliance strictly on one physical place.
Jason Rigby (08:08):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (08:08):
It spreads it out all over the globe with its own support.
Jason Rigby (08:10):
Yeah. No, I love that. And then next one is payment transaction.
Alexander McCaig (08:13):
Yeah. Payment transactions. So with cryptocurrencies, right? It's an obvious example.
Jason Rigby (08:20):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (08:21):
There's no reason you can't do that for booking your tickets.
Jason Rigby (08:23):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (08:25):
On the blockchain, if somebody tries to write to the blockchain twice for the same thing, there's an issue here. So if something unverified goes to the blockchain, it sends a red flag and the other people are like, "This isn't verified. It's not legit." So if you go to process a payment to book a ticket, anything of that sort of function, it's going to say, okay, only one person is allowed to be on the spot in the ledger.
Jason Rigby (08:46):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:46):
They came here first.
Jason Rigby (08:47):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:48):
So you don't have to rip four people off of their flight through force. We verify through blockchain that this individual in fact does have it.
Jason Rigby (08:55):
Yeah. And now this one's exciting for me because I'm the guy that's unlucky. When I check in baggage, it always gets lost.
Alexander McCaig (09:03):
Well, we did an earlier episode on supply chain management.
Jason Rigby (09:05):
Yes. It's the same thing.
Alexander McCaig (09:06):
We were talking about how they were applying blockchain to supply chain management. You want to know where it's gone, who's touched it. So it's essentially like a smart contract to your bag. I know it was in fact in this destination at this point, scanned by this person and written to the ledger, verified by everybody. Okay. My baggage is not lost. We know exactly where it is. Did someone forget to put it on the plane? Possibly because it wasn't scanned in again, but it is not a lost piece of baggage.
Jason Rigby (09:30):
Yeah. And then ticket overbooking.
Alexander McCaig (09:31):
Yeah. And that's the other thing I was talking about. So the purchasing and the ticket overbooking are kind of hand in hand, but they're separated out in the article. So, we can skip that. It doesn't matter.
Jason Rigby (09:38):
Yeah. And then the last one is document verification.
Alexander McCaig (09:41):
Yeah. Document verification. So this is interesting. In the security practices going on in the airline industry, show me your passport, show me these other things-
Jason Rigby (09:50):
Right. It's all paper-based. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (09:51):
A lot of it is paper-based.
Jason Rigby (09:53):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (09:54):
But this is going to be a function of governments moving into, okay, let's look at this verification. Are we willing to move passports onto the blockchain? Do we trust that technology enough to do so, more so than someone walking around with their passport and losing it? It'd be easier for me to just scan my hand like this-
Jason Rigby (10:09):
Yes. Yes.
Alexander McCaig (10:10):
And then have that data on the blockchain and say, yes, this is in fact the individual, brings up the digital passport, on your way.
Jason Rigby (10:15):
Yeah. And they were saying like, whether it's a hand or whatever it may be, but it would be a unique code in the blockchain for verifying themselves the minute they enter the airport.
Alexander McCaig (10:24):
Yes. So the way I would see this is you have a specific signature to your hand print. So my fingerprints are actually my decryption key. Oh, that's pretty cool now that I'm thinking about it. I think we're onto something. Somebody build that.
Jason Rigby (10:38):
Yeah. But I mean the cool part is it could happen in the cloud instantaneously when you walk inside the airport through your phone.
Alexander McCaig (10:47):
Yeah. You could do that also.
Jason Rigby (10:48):
You won't even have to have a-
Alexander McCaig (10:49):
No, they know that this verified person is in fact here.
Jason Rigby (10:52):
So it could verify the minute you step on the property.
Alexander McCaig (10:55):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (10:55):
Then if you still have... Of course, you'll still have security physically, human to human-
Alexander McCaig (11:01):
The final verification will have to be-
Jason Rigby (11:01):
It could be a hand or something.
Alexander McCaig (11:02):
Yes, this cell phone is here-
Jason Rigby (11:04):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (11:04):
... that is written to this person.
Jason Rigby (11:05):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (11:05):
But now we've got to make sure that the human being of that human being is really here.
Jason Rigby (11:09):
And these ledgers could keep that, which would give us even double, triple, quadruple security in the airport.
Alexander McCaig (11:14):
Or greater efficiency. And then if you're trying to figure out where maybe bad actors are flying around, you would know where they've gone point to point to point.
Jason Rigby (11:21):
Yes., exactly.
Alexander McCaig (11:22):
With great verification you do see.
Jason Rigby (11:23):
Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I don't think that would be a privacy issue because whenever you look at blockchain, it's totally, safe.
Alexander McCaig (11:33):
Well, Jason, think about it. It's, you're going to an airport. You're asking to put people on this tin can in the sky-
Jason Rigby (11:38):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (11:39):
And you're going country to country. The second you've bought that ticket, you're giving up a lot of privacy for your safety.
Jason Rigby (11:45):
Yes. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (11:46):
There is a trade-off there when it comes to sort of commercial travel at that point.
Jason Rigby (11:49):
But I think the privacy worries with blockchain will be eliminated because you can make that anonymous system in and of itself and then have it where it's just verifying based off of open source data.
Alexander McCaig (12:01):
Yeah. Essentially you don't really need to know anything about that person, but it is doing a verification on them.
Jason Rigby (12:07):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (12:08):
It's been verified by all the nodes across the globe on [crosstalk 00:12:11].
Jason Rigby (12:10):
Yeah. Because right now, when I go to ABQ's International Airport, it's basically a guy that I walk up in the line, the guy looks at my driver's license and then looks at my... I scan my phone for the ticket.
Alexander McCaig (12:23):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (12:24):
And there's some security in all that. I get it. But it's not even close to the detail that blockchain could offer.
Alexander McCaig (12:32):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (12:33):
Because you're going off of... And then I have to go through-
Alexander McCaig (12:36):
With [crosstalk 00:12:36] you can put so much more metadata.
Jason Rigby (12:37):
Yeah, exactly. And as we get into machine learning and all that on the aviation industry, then you could have a machine scanning the items and understanding the anomalies, instead of a person sitting there.
Alexander McCaig (12:49):
There's no reason for a TSA agent to be there.
Jason Rigby (12:51):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (12:52):
All they're doing is checking stuff.
Jason Rigby (12:54):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (12:54):
Okay? And I know that machines, like when it goes through the x-ray machine, that software is so intelligent. They just have a dude they're pushing the button. He's really not needed.
Jason Rigby (13:05):
Yeah. And you see that in a lot of areas where they're using machine learning to assist, to help, and to kind of point out and say, "Hey, you need to check this baggage." And that's what they're there for like, "Hey, check that one."
Alexander McCaig (13:17):
Yeah. That's it.
Jason Rigby (13:18):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (13:19):
That's the only person [crosstalk 00:13:19].
Jason Rigby (13:19):
It's because you need... A robot can't physically-
Alexander McCaig (13:21):
One dude there with a machine gun and then another person there to just check bags.
Jason Rigby (13:24):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (13:25):
And then you've cut back on 80% of the TSA workers.
Jason Rigby (13:27):
Yeah. And if you guys want to see an airport that's ultra safe, you need to go to Israel and look at their airports.
Alexander McCaig (13:32):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (13:33):
They have snipers on the roof.
Alexander McCaig (13:34):
I remember I flew into Morocco.
Jason Rigby (13:36):
Oh, yeah.
Alexander McCaig (13:37):
I've never seen more machine guns in one airport in my life. And nobody was smiling.
Jason Rigby (13:42):
Yeah. Well, I'll close on this because I'm side noting, but it's interesting. So I watched a whole thing last night from a UFC fighter that came from Cameroon.
Alexander McCaig (13:53):
Cameroon.
Jason Rigby (13:53):
Yeah. And he's just a huge, super nice guy, huge dude. But he actually did the whole thing from going from country to country in Africa, from Cameroon and then going to Morocco and then trying to get to France and the Moroccan Government in Spain, they have a lockdown because you can imagine if they didn't have immigration-
Alexander McCaig (14:16):
Well, they've got that [crosstalk 00:14:16].
Jason Rigby (14:16):
You would have all of-
Alexander McCaig (14:16):
Look at how short that channel is.
Jason Rigby (14:17):
Yeah. You would have all of Albu...
Alexander McCaig (14:18):
Albuquerque.
Jason Rigby (14:18):
I mean, all of Africa. Sorry. You'd have all of Africa trying to get into Europe.
Alexander McCaig (14:23):
Yes. Yeah.
Jason Rigby (14:25):
And no reason why not, because they want to try to better their lives, but the amount of security, the amount of high technology that they're using, infrared and night vision and-
Alexander McCaig (14:39):
It really is amazing.
Jason Rigby (14:40):
It is amazing. Spain has their shit together on that.
Alexander McCaig (14:43):
Dude, listen, if we in the US Government can have satellites that use a ground-penetrating radar technology that can see inside the walls of people's homes, come on.
Jason Rigby (14:56):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (14:56):
Please.
Jason Rigby (14:57):
It's that simple.
Alexander McCaig (14:57):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (14:58):
So aviation industry, work on the blockchain. You guys are doing an amazing job. We love you.
Alexander McCaig (15:03):
Yeah, shout out, decentralized technology.
Jason Rigby (15:04):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (15:06):
Props to you. Get it?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
