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

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

#31

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #27
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.

There seems to be a pretty big leap in logic from 'using a blockchain' to 'infeasible for anyone except google'. You do realize that an internationally roaming cell phone data plan can sync with the blockchain right?

At ludicrous cost, yes.

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

#32

Post by natrius »

drdaeman wrote: post #30
natrius wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is a special case because it's only really intended to be used as a ledger for bitcoins. Currencies are a collective delusion: they're valuable because other people think they are valuable. Any dispute over what the source of truth is for a currency's ledger strains that delusion, possibly to the breaking point. The value of the currency would suffer, which would defeat the purpose of a fork. Ethereum is a ge…

> Moving a blockchain-based Twitter from one fork to another is relatively easy and consequence-free. I'm not sure it's really consequence-free. It's essentially a netsplit, where the forking party lose connectivity with everyone who's left. Consider the case where Twitter (the centralized one) is suddenly falling apart over some issue into two distinct non-interoperating services. Technically - sure - it's a no-brai…

You got it. Push a new client that supports both chains to users with enough time before the switch for people to upgrade.

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

#33

Post by troymc »

kkennis wrote: post #22
brighton36 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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, ignoranc…

'Blockchain' isn't a meaningless buzzword, it's a database protocol. Its market positioning aside, there's a very real value that immutable databases offer from both a technological and a commercial perspective. The blockchain protocol isn't going to 'save the world' - but once a little air gets let out of the balloon, it's going to see a lot of adoption in both financial institutions and back offices in a wide, wide…

I agree that "blockchain" is essentially a database protocol for a special kind of database, but I'm fairly sure there's no standard, agreed-upon, single "blockchain protocol."

Bitcoin may be the best-known blockchain protocol, but there many others in active use.

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

#34

Post by t1amat »

natrius wrote: post #11
athenot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This sounds great but it is a dramatic misunderstanding of the real problem. Sure, you can personally decide you don't like a particular fork. However, the value of your position is not determined by you, it is determined by the community and their overall choice.

Bitcoin forking is dangerous. If it goes bad and the community becomes overly fragmented then everyone loses. The strength of a position in Bitcoin is a combination of many factors, but the most important ones are related to the size of the community, its relative stability as a crypto coin, and the relative ubiquity of it.

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

#35

Post by jflatow »

natrius wrote: post #26
drdaeman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a blockchain has rules that don't meet my needs, I can choose a different blockchain. Had this happened with Bitcoin? I think I heard there are some quite major disagreements (something about block sizes and stuff) and there are a lot of users that aren't happy. I don't remember hearing them just "well, whatever" and forking off.

Bitcoin is a special case because it's only really intended to be used as a ledger for bitcoins. Currencies are a collective delusion: they're valuable because other people think they are valuable. Any dispute over what the source of truth is for a currency's ledger strains that delusion, possibly to the breaking point. The value of the currency would suffer, which would defeat the purpose of a fork. Ethereum is a ge…

What's the benefit of being 'completely decentralized', if the individual joining the network still needs to decide which network and set of rules to trust? Answer: none, you've just pushed the question of trust / centralization to that of choosing the particular fork you want to use.

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

#36

Post by Animats »

stcredzero wrote: post #29
fallenshell wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Couldn't a federated system that looks like a centralized system work? What if something like Diaspora just installed itself on an AWS EC2 instance for you, and you only had to enter a credit card?

An EC2 instance is probably too much for one user. The model here is Wordpress, which is easy to install and widely used, even in its distributed form. Of course, what's happened is that more and more Wordpress sites run on centralized Wordpress.

Compare:

"wordpress.com" (hosted): "Create your new website for free. WordPress.com is the best place for your personal blog or business site. Create Website (button)"

"wordpress.org" (download): "The latest stable release of WordPress (Version 4.5.2) is available in two formats from the links to your right. If you have no idea what to do with this download, we recommend signing up with one of our web hosting partners that offers a one-click install of WordPress or getting a free account on WordPress.com."

Open source just doesn't get user-friendly onboarding.

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

#37

Post by toss1 »

natrius wrote: post #20
falcolas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

OK, I'll bite, with a serious, practical question -- how would I do that this week?

Please assume that I have 100 BTC at a particular address or small set of addresses, and I don't like the Chinese mining consortia.

How do I actually move my value to a new chain that 1) excludes those mining consortia, 2) preserves my stored value, and 3) preserves my ability to transact with any other valid BTC address? How can I get this done by next week?

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

#38

Post by jflatow »

natrius wrote: post #20
falcolas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And who is 'everyone'? Who decides who the next iteration of 'everyone' is?

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

#40

Post by natrius »

toss1 wrote: post #37
natrius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK, I'll bite, with a serious, practical question -- how would I do that this week? Please assume that I have 100 BTC at a particular address or small set of addresses, and I don't like the Chinese mining consortia. How do I actually move my value to a new chain that 1) excludes those mining consortia, 2) preserves my stored value, and 3) preserves my ability to transact with any other valid BTC address? How can I ge…

Fork Bitcoin to change the rules to exclude those miners, either by switching to proof-of-stake or just changing the proof-of-work hashing algorithm. Like this: https://github.com/bitcoinclassic/bitcoinclassic/pull/6

As I stated elsewhere, this is impractical for Bitcoin because the value of the currency would tank. For applications like the one in this article that use general purpose blockchains, forking is very practical.

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