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The Ethereum website says that it provides a "cryptographically secure, decentralized, tamper-proof network" on which applications written in the Solidity contract language could be deployed. (https://www.ethereum.org)

Is Ethereum really a way to deploy distributed applications that are truly 100% tamper-proof?

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  • The blockchain concept does suggest this is possible. Whether this particular implementation works, is hard for a group of 3rd party people to assess for you.
    – schroeder ♦
    Dec 4, 2016 at 8:18
  • Etherium already pulled off a hard-fork in order to violate one of the contracts.
    – CodesInChaos
    Dec 4, 2016 at 9:32

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It might depend on what you mean by "tamper-proof" and what they mean.

One of the benefits of blockchains is the ability to distribute a ledger of data across the entire network. Each node in the network enforces the integrity of the data for the rest.

If you can somehow express your application in a way that can be stored and verified in the ledger (like a hash of the binary), then yes, the blockchain algorithms would simply take care of the rest. Any unrecognised application would be ejected from the network.

If you went the next step so that updates to the apps were enforced by the network, then it is possible for the apps in the network to enforce a certain level of operation so that if one node was altered, then the rest of the apps would revert the altered node.

Those are 2 different types of "tamper-proof". You might need to ask Ethereum what they mean by the phrase.

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  • Could you please suggest a very precise definition for the terms "tamper-proof", "tamper-resistance", and "tamper-evidence" ? Have these terms a unique and standard definition in the field of information security? Please let me know if I should ask this in a separate question. Thank you.
    – Questioner
    Nov 8, 2019 at 11:21
  • @Questioner My answer here is about the scope of the tamper-proof claim, not about the definition. This is a brand new question unrelated to the question above, so do please post a new question. BUT FIRST, make sure you look up these terms first.
    – schroeder ♦
    Nov 8, 2019 at 11:32

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