这篇文章是我发表在腾讯云+社区上的翻译文章，点击「阅读原文」可以查看原文。通过这篇文章，你会接触到一些区块链的概念，以及区块链的发展历程，还有区块链能在物联网发展起到的作用。
本篇文章将以中英文翻译对比的形式呈现，通过这种方式能够让你更好地理解作者想表达的意思，因为很多英文思维的东西，用中文很难表达，这时候建议看看英文的句子。
IoT and smart contracts on blockchain are the talk of the town. But whether they're all ready for action -- legally or otherwise -- can be debated.
物联网和区块链智能合约是当下热议的话题。但他们到底能不能合法地应用到实际生活中，这还有待商榷。
For most organizations, IoT has been mostly about more and better widgets connected in more and better ways to produce more and better data and decisions. But IoT is also implicitly about automating everything. And that implies bringing a lot of business concepts along for the ride -- including the idea of a contract to govern business transactions by.
对于大多数的组织来说，物联网技术意味着更好的组件连接方式、更好的数据生产方式和决策方式。但物联网技术同时也意味着将所有事情自动化。同时也会带来许多业务上的新概念，包括用于规范生意事务的合约。
Contract law has a rich history, with several centuries of common law practice and legislation. So, when forward thinkers propose to make "smart" contracts on blockchain, it's both exciting and daunting. How the concept actually evolves has a lot to do with future IoT initiatives. There are legal complexities to be considered, as well as potential problems such as unanticipated bugs in both the code and the contracts themselves.
合同法有非常悠久的历史，经历了几个世纪的实践和立法。所以当一些思想先锋提出将智能合约应用到区块链上，很多人觉得既有趣又让人畏惧。智能合约如何发展，与未来物联网行业有很大关系。它需要考虑法律层面上的复杂性，以及代码和智能合约本身未曾预料到的bug。
IoT and smart contracts on blockchain intersect
物联网和区块链智能合约的交集
"One of the biggest issues in IoT is knowing who you are connecting to. That requirement for trust mechanisms across millions or billions of sensors is what makes a distributed system like a blockchain vital," said Richard Mark Soley, Ph.D., executive director of the Industrial Internet Consortium, based in Needham, Mass.
物联网一个最大的问题就是设备之间的相互感知，这就需要海量设备之间建立一种信任机制，这使得区块链这样的分布式系统尤为重要。Richard Mark Solely 博士说到。他是一家总部在 Needham Mass 的工业化互联网财团的CEO。
But marrying contracts and IoT -- "smart contracts" -- may be a different matter.
但婚约与物联网智能合约，可能不太一样。
Where blockchain distributes a ledger system, the "contract" concept extends the function of the ledger to include a language for terms of agreement and measurements to determine if certain conditions have been met. "A smart contract can be designed to execute automatically when both the buyer and the seller conditions are met," said Bill Fearnley Jr., a research director of worldwide compliance, fraud and risk analytics strategies and blockchain at IDC. Those conditions could include that the price of a commodity and the required delivery date all match with what a person is willing to pay and when they require delivery. In other words, a smart contract could potentially work across a blockchain to facilitate business activity and commerce.
区块链分发了一个账本，智能合约扩展了账本的功能。它包含了一系列的标准规范，以检测具体的条件是否达到。当买家和卖家的条件吻合的时候，一个智能合约能自动执行。IDC 里一位专门研究国际协议、诈骗风险分析、区块链战略的的研究部主管 Bill Fearnley Jr 说。这些条件可能包含了卖方所提供的价格和交付时间与买房所提供的价格和交付时间相吻合。换句话说，智能合约能通过区块链推动商业活动和贸易的发展。
Fearnley said there are already automated buy-sell contracts, but, with blockchain, you can take code and contract terms and put them in a ledger that is shared by multiple parties.
Fearnley 说，现在早已经有自动化的买卖合同。但是，如果有区块链，你可以将代码和合同条款这些信息放在一个多方共享的账本里面。
"The advantage is the buy-sell contract is executed and then the payment contract is executed, too," Fearnley said. "The reason smart contracts get so much attention is that, while buy-sell can be done very quickly, post-trade settlement after the fact is often very messy and expensive. But, with blockchain, all of that paperwork flow is now automated and those records are put in the blockchain."
优势是买卖合同执行之后，支付合同也会执行。Fearnley 说。智能合约之所以能吸引这么多注意是因为，虽然买卖过程可以很快结束，但是交易后结算通常非常混乱并且昂贵。但是，现在有了区块链，所有的文书工作都可以自动化，并且都可以记录保存在区块链中。
The buy-sell contract can be set up in advance, records can be logged automatically for traceability and records can be used to trace provenance for concerns, such as ingredient purity, Fearnley noted.
买卖合同可以提前确定，自动可以自动记录，并且可以用来追溯。如果有必要，这些记录可以用来追溯出处，例如某个成分的纯度。Fearnley 说。
The trouble with smart contracts on blockchain
区块链中智能合约的问题
The so-called decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) hack of 2016 has set some on edge regarding blockchain. In that incident, the DAO was trying to provide a kind of participatory venture capital fund, which was launched through the Ethereum blockchain and crowdfunded via token sale in May 2016.
2016年所谓的DAO黑客事件让很多人对区块链有些焦虑。在此次意外中，2016年5月，DAO尝试通过以太坊和区块链完成风险投资基金的众筹。
But in June 2016, parties unknown exploited an unnoticed code vulnerability and rerouted one-third of the funds. Reversing the theft prompted a controversial "fork" of the Ethereum blockchain. A new fork rolled back the ledger, resetting it so it appeared the event never happened and nominally restoring the funding to the DAO. However, those who disagreed with the move maintained an unforked blockchain known as Ethereum Classic.
但在2016年5月，一些不知名的组织利用了一个未被察觉的代码漏洞，转移了1/3的资金。为了避免资金被盗取，所以DAO新建了一个有争议的太坊区块链分支。这个新的分支回滚了账本，这使得这个意外好像从来没发生过，名义上恢复了DAO的基金。然而，那些不同意这一做法的人依然维护着一个未被回滚的区块链分支，我们称之为经典以太坊（Ethereum Classic）。
While blockchain may be transformative, it isn't necessarily transforming the law. Jason Epstein attorney, Nelson Mullins The ledger itself was never actually "hacked," rather a mistake in the code simply allowed unlimited withdrawals; but nonetheless, the event underscored the complexity of smart contracts. "As a result, companies, financial institutions and regulators are increasingly diligent about smart contracts to avoid similar mishaps in the future," Fearnley said.
虽然区块链很有变革性，但它没必要对法律进行变革。Jason Epstein 律师说。Nelson Mullins 说，与其说账本被黑，不如说是代码中的一个错误导致可以无限制地提现。不管如何，这件事引起来人们对智能合约的复杂性的重视。因此，公司、金融机构、监管机构对智能合约更加关注，从而避免类似事故再次发生。 Fearnley said.
"Call me a smart contract Cassandra, if you will; I think it is an interesting concept, but one to be approached with care," said analyst Martha Bennett, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. "For one thing, they are neither smart nor contracts." Bennett added that her simple way of describing smart contracts is as a species of business process automation. "If you strip away all the aspirational language, it is a set of business rules encoded in software," she said. "If calling them business rules is too much because you are libertarian-inclined, then call it a set of governance principles.
如果你喜欢，你可以叫我智能合约预言家（Cassandra 希腊神话里的一个预言家）。我觉得这是一个很有趣的概念，但是需要我们谨慎地去探索。Forrester 研究所首席分析师 Martha Bennett 分析说。一方面，他们并不智能，也不是合约。Bennett 补充说，关于智能合约的一个比较简洁的解释是商务程序自动化。如果你去掉那些多余的华丽语言，它其实就是用软件程序实现的生意规则。她说。如果你是一个自由主义者，你会觉得远远说不上是生意规则，而是一系列的生意治理原则。
"Headlines are asserting that this new environment of code is law, but it isn't -- you still need a separate legal agreement in order to have something that is enforceable," Bennett added. "If you are looking at the wider blockchain environment, if those activities cross boundaries, you may need binding agreements regarding whose jurisdiction will be the governing law; it's something that will keep lawyers busy for years."
有些新闻头条声称这些由代码所组成的规则就是法律条文，但它并不是。你仍然需要一套独立的法律，从而让一些东西具有强制性。Bennett 补充说。如果你考虑到更广阔的区块链应用环境，或者说有一些区块链应用在法律上越界了，那么你可能需要制定一些有约束力的协议。这些东西会让你的律师在未来几年很忙。
Jason Epstein, an attorney with Nelson Mullins, agreed. "While blockchain may be transformative, it isn't necessarily transforming the law." However, he noted, there are many existing legal principles that can be applied to blockchain. "A smart contract is just computer code that self-executes based on input and output, which is just like day trading," Epstein said. "In a blockchain smart contract, the agreement states that the code is the contract and neither party can repudiate it."
Jason Epstein，Nelson Mullins 的一个律师表示同意。虽然区块链可能具有变个性，但是它没有必要变革法律。但是，他提醒，现在的很多法律条文是可以适用于区块链的。智能合约仅仅是基于输入和输出的计算机代码，就像股票中的当日买卖交易工具。Epstein 说。在区块链智能合约中，协议规定这些代码就是合同，而任何一个组织都不能否定它。
Beyond the semantics of whether a smart contract is really "smart," in Epstein's view, it can potentially be used for almost anything. However, he said, whether that is wise is another question. For instance, he noted if a situation might involve healthcare providers, one would want to make sure that terms and conditions protected you from Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy issues. "If you are talking about a complex negotiation or agreement, a smart contract becomes more and more challenging if you are going to try to cover all the legal issues," Epstein added.
在 Epstein 看来，虽然智能合约（Smart Contract）能应用在任何一个方面。然而，在某些领域应用智能合约不是明智的。例如，他说如果涉及到医疗服务提供方，有些人希望这些条款和固定能保护你的隐私问题。如果涉及到的是很复杂的协议或者规定，那么智能合约很可能无法胜任，因为它会带来很多法律上的问题。Epstein说。
The future of IoT and smart contracts on blockchain
物联网和区块链智能合约的未来
In Soley's view, there is no doubt IoT combined with smart contracts on blockchain will be beneficial in industrial use cases. And, to that end, the Object Management Group, with which the Industrial Internet Consortium is affiliated, is looking at possible standardization of distributed contract mechanisms.
在 Soley 看来，物联网和区块链智能合约的结合有利于工业化领域的发展。为了实现这一目标，IIC 组织的父级机构 OMG 组织正寻找适合的方式，将分布式智能合约机制标准化。
"It is early, Soley said. "At present, there are no standards, but we understand what the standards would do." Likewise, while Soley said he does know of some projects that are experimenting with IoT smart contracts, they are not yet in an approved test bed within the Consortium. But he expects that day is not far away.
现在看来还太早了。Soley 说。目前来说，还没有相关的规范，但我们知道标准化能带来的好处。同样的，当 Soley 说某些物联网智能合约的项目正在实验阶段，但他们还未得到正式的实验许可。但他希望那天尽快来临。
"Things are moving faster than you would think," Soley said. "This year, we expect to see some interesting test beds with cognitive systems, [artificial intelligence] and machine learning. I think we will see the first blockchain standards in the next year and a distributed contract test bed this year."
事情的发展远比我们想象中的快。Soley 说。今年，我们希望看到一些关于认知系统、人工智能、机器学习的有趣测试。我认为我们会在明年看到第一个区块链标准，在今年会看到一个分布式合约测试案例。
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