Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

lasindias.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 79 posts

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#11

Post by natrius »

athenot wrote: post #10
natrius wrote: post #2

This just isn't true. Yes, running your own blockchain node is infeasible, but a blockchain-based service with hosted nodes is better than a federated service. Proof-of-work creates an illusion of dependence on blockchain miners. Proof-of-stake makes it clear that blockchains are run by a corporation that wants to maximize transaction fee revenue. Transaction validators have to do the best job of maintaining a unifie…

> but a blockchain-based service with hosted nodes is better than a federated service ...and a federated service is better than a handful of silos controlling the network. So if the blockchain is supported by the mining of many small miners, it's a decentralized dream. But if there are a handful of miners validating the majority of transactions, then it ends up smelling a lot like the handful of silos situation. Not…

Miners cannot control your eyes. You can choose any record as your source of truth. If miners produce a good one, look at that one. If they produce a bad one, look somewhere else.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#12

Post by Animats »

"The alternative on which we can build a great new Internet era is projects like GNU social, Friendica, Hubzilla, Diaspora, and efforts to design common protocols like ActivityPub, not on the blockchain."

All the new federated social systems have failed, replaced by commercial, centralized systems. (IRC and email live on. Google thinks it owns Usenet, rebranded as "Google Groups", and a big chunk of email never passes through SMTP.) Why? We had a good discussion of this recently by the creator of WhatsApp(?). Centralized systems can be upgraded and enhanced. Federated systems require massive cooperation to change. And federated systems don't generate much revenue.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#13

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Imagine if BitTorrent, or Freenet/IPFS/GNUNet/etc. used a blockchain. They'd be completely infeasible for anyone except Google: you'd need petabytes of storage on your computer just to download a single movie (or a Linux ISO, or whatever).

But they don't do that. These systems are actually distributed, and that's why they work.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#14

Post by falcolas »

natrius wrote: post #9
schmichael wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Proof-of-work creates an illusion of dependence on blockchain miners. How is proof-of-work's dependence on miners an illusion? Seems like a fundamental property of proof-of-work that it depends solely on the consensus of miners.

Miners only mine to gain more bitcoins. The market determines what bitcoins are. The market can decide to treat a different historical record with different rules as the ledger for bitcoins. This is much easier in proof-of-stake systems. You can't destroy a bad miner's mining equipment, but you can destroy a bad validator's deposit, which removes them from the system.

> you can destroy a bad validator's deposit

And how does this happen? By a consensus of miners?

If I, as an individual, were to find reason to distrust a entity who makes up the majority of mining transactions, how likely is it that I will be able to use the main blockchain ever again?

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#15

Post by ultramancool »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #13

Imagine if BitTorrent, or Freenet/IPFS/GNUNet/etc. used a blockchain. They'd be completely infeasible for anyone except Google: you'd need petabytes of storage on your computer just to download a single movie (or a Linux ISO, or whatever). But they don't do that. These systems are actually distributed, and that's why they work.

You're missing the point of what a blockchain is good at vs what it's not. Blockchains are good for assigning ownership. For networks which don't need to track ownership, of course you shouldn't use a blockchain. Bittorrent, Freenet, etc do not track ownership as infinite copies of something is not a problem, but a feature.

But for networks which do, you may want to. For example, only one person may control this name, this domain, this tradeable asset, etc.

Blockchains are an addon to distributed models because they allow a distributed way to prove ownership of something. Say I want to look someone up by name instead of by cryptographic hash, how do I do it? You can't register a name in a Freenet or Bittorrent model.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#16

Post by brighton36 »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #13

Imagine if BitTorrent, or Freenet/IPFS/GNUNet/etc. used a blockchain. They'd be completely infeasible for anyone except Google: you'd need petabytes of storage on your computer just to download a single movie (or a Linux ISO, or whatever). But they don't do that. These systems are actually distributed, and that's why they work.

'Blockchain' is a meaningless buzzword at this point. The innovation of Bitcoin was proof of work and/or the calibrations involved in securing Bitcoin with energy.

When bitcoin became an unfundable space, the VC's and such moved into "Blockchain", which was marketed as the good parts of bitcoin, without the bad.

Unfortunately, the space has seemingly gone on to only emulate the worst parts of bitcoin. Scams, ignorance, and get rich quick schemes. Currently, "blockchain" appears to be targeting centralized, decentralized, mutable, immutable applications. The blockchain movement is meaningless, and appears to be merely the exhaust gas from the bitcoin funding hype.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#17

Post by maxerickson »

Animats wrote: post #12

"The alternative on which we can build a great new Internet era is projects like GNU social, Friendica, Hubzilla, Diaspora, and efforts to design common protocols like ActivityPub, not on the blockchain." All the new federated social systems have failed, replaced by commercial, centralized systems. (IRC and email live on. Google thinks it owns Usenet, rebranded as "Google Groups", and a big chunk of email never passe…

Presumably you are talking about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912

The author helped WhatsApp move to an end to end encrypted protocol.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#18

Post by natrius »

ultramancool wrote: post #15
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #13

Imagine if BitTorrent, or Freenet/IPFS/GNUNet/etc. used a blockchain. They'd be completely infeasible for anyone except Google: you'd need petabytes of storage on your computer just to download a single movie (or a Linux ISO, or whatever). But they don't do that. These systems are actually distributed, and that's why they work.

You're missing the point of what a blockchain is good at vs what it's not. Blockchains are good for assigning ownership. For networks which don't need to track ownership, of course you shouldn't use a blockchain. Bittorrent, Freenet, etc do not track ownership as infinite copies of something is not a problem, but a feature. But for networks which do, you may want to. For example, only one person may control this name…

Beyond ownership, an important class of use cases is promises. Without blockchains, it's hard to determine how well a potential trade partner follows through on their promises without a third party that maintains a reputation history. With blockchains, people can provide cryptographically signed promises that give their trade partner the ability to publish their satisfaction or lack thereof. You can retrieve a complete reputation history without a middleman, which is a brand new thing.

People are using blockchains for too many things, but that's healthy. It's the only way we can find all the things they're useful for.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#19

Post by fallenshell »

Animats wrote: post #12

"The alternative on which we can build a great new Internet era is projects like GNU social, Friendica, Hubzilla, Diaspora, and efforts to design common protocols like ActivityPub, not on the blockchain." All the new federated social systems have failed, replaced by commercial, centralized systems. (IRC and email live on. Google thinks it owns Usenet, rebranded as "Google Groups", and a big chunk of email never passe…

Besides, there's the convenience and ease of use aspect. Most of these federated services are not easy to use for the average newcomer or tech-illiterate user demographic, for example. And sometimes they're inconvenient.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#20

Post by natrius »

falcolas wrote: post #14
natrius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miners only mine to gain more bitcoins. The market determines what bitcoins are. The market can decide to treat a different historical record with different rules as the ledger for bitcoins. This is much easier in proof-of-stake systems. You can't destroy a bad miner's mining equipment, but you can destroy a bad validator's deposit, which removes them from the system.

> you can destroy a bad validator's deposit And how does this happen? By a consensus of miners? If I, as an individual, were to find reason to distrust a entity who makes up the majority of mining transactions, how likely is it that I will be able to use the main blockchain ever again?

Yes, by a consensus of miners, or by users choosing a new set of miners. The "main blockchain" is not a decision of the miners. It's a decision of the people. If everyone agrees that current miners are behaving badly in a proof-of-stake system, they can just choose new miners.
Post reply on HN