Security of Smart Contracts

Toadie

I was reading this:
coindesk.com/bitcoin-and-public-blockchains-will-power-the-smart-contracts-revolution/

The author claims smart contracts have a major drawback in the financial services space..."One such drawback in the current state of blockchain design is that the code inside of a smart contract needs to be disclosed to all parties on the network."

I'm fairly new to the concepts here, but can the virtual machine byte code in a transaction be inspected and "disassembled" back into Solidity for all and sundry to inspect??
Surely in the context of a financial app (e.g an OTC derivative trade), a) the blockchain is private with only known parties able to access it, and b) the smart contract can only be disassembled if you are one of the parties to it?

Is this a stupid question?!! Is it a core premise of Ethereum that smart contract code can be be read by anyone who has access to the blockchain (like javascript in a browser), or is there a way of encrypted the code such that only the creator can access and modify it?

I'm missing something obvious here ... what is it?? !
Thanks
Toadie.

etherdot

I am fairly new too, but my understanding is that the code in the contract refers to what the contract does, i.e. a set of instructions. Which is how an ideal open society should be. And then there is the timestamp, and time-stamp is of the essence. Now I know that a lot of financial trade instruments are confidential, sensitive, and ownership of value is a big deal - from legal viewpoint. That's why I even heard mention of private blockchains at bankers gatherings. What they're trying to do is to use the blockchain technology but in a way they can only have access to and control, or put it under some validating authority (to be compliant). Which defies the purpose of Ethereum. That's why I believe that ethereum will have a long way ahead, and it's not the bank sector, but the IoT where it has a better shot and a wider opportunity, at least for the near future.

Toadie

Thanks for the reply - yes that mirrors my understanding too but wasn't sure if I hadn't missed one aspect, and I agree with your wider comments.