[jagtesh]

You’re on point except for one big difference: a block chain is distributed.

I don’t think it is foolproof, as no tech really is. But the concept seems to significantly raise the cost and complexity of an attack to compromise it.

The simplest way I can imagine doing it is - spoofing network requests from the party trying to verify something, or routing that request to a compromised node. I will make a guess that networking equipment in a govt. setting can protect against a low level attack.

Disclaimer: I take a passive interest in this space but have never studied or implemented a block-chain application.

[giaour]

In practice, blockchains tend to be extremely centralized without a deliberate effort to prevent them from becoming so. (Cf https://www.nber.org/papers/w29396) You can get around this in a permissioned blockchain with a minimum quorum size, but at that point, you're basically running a fancy git repository with a number of mirrors.