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Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

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Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#21

Post by throwanem »

ianpurton wrote: post #14

If you struggled with this explanation then I can try another a bit more IT related. A blockchain is... A distributed fault tolerant public database that no one owns and everyone can update. Has this been done before? Kind of, distributed database are not new. What is new is solving the problem of multiple updates changing the same data at the same time. So for example let's say the following happens to our distribut…

Your example might benefit from some revision. Simply rewriting those statements as adjustments to the existing balance ("SET balance = balance + 1000" et al.), as would be used in reality, alleviates the race. This doesn't really help your example show blockchain's value.

Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#23

Post by maweki »

throwanem wrote: post #21
ianpurton wrote: post #14

If you struggled with this explanation then I can try another a bit more IT related. A blockchain is... A distributed fault tolerant public database that no one owns and everyone can update. Has this been done before? Kind of, distributed database are not new. What is new is solving the problem of multiple updates changing the same data at the same time. So for example let's say the following happens to our distribut…

Your example might benefit from some revision. Simply rewriting those statements as adjustments to the existing balance ("SET balance = balance + 1000" et al.), as would be used in reality, alleviates the race. This doesn't really help your example show blockchain's value.

Which doesn't work once the operation is not commutative.

Serializing parallel operation is hard!

Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#24

Post by throwanem »

maweki wrote: post #23
throwanem wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example might benefit from some revision. Simply rewriting those statements as adjustments to the existing balance ("SET balance = balance + 1000" et al.), as would be used in reality, alleviates the race. This doesn't really help your example show blockchain's value.

Which doesn't work once the operation is not commutative. Serializing parallel operation is hard!

Very true. If nothing else, perhaps it's worth choosing an example with which a pedant like me can't quite so trivially quibble!

Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#25

Post by m3ta »

mosselman wrote: post #12
Udik wrote: post #3

I guess the purpose is satirical, but it's an awfully complicated explanation. I guess it can be understood only by people who already know how a blockchain works.

In another comment in this thread I mentioned my boss asking our team if 'blockhains would be a good idea to add security' in our web application because a customer mentioned them. If I were to send this MS Pain visualisation to my boss he'd still not understand anything about it. The subject is quite complex and the metaphor used is far to abstract for people who already struggle with describing the simplest require…

The subject could be seen as very complex but for most use-cases there is a simple litmus test. Do you need censorship-resistant transactions or a neutral/decentralized timestamping server? If not, then you don't need a blockchain. That's really it.

In the case of a vendor, accepting _bitcoin_ has own security advantages, and bitcoin comes with its own blockchain built-in. As a vendor you probably wouldn't really need to worry about the blockchain as much as you would need to worry about avoiding exchange rate fees.

Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#27

Post by mosselman »

Udik wrote: post #20
mosselman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another comment in this thread I mentioned my boss asking our team if 'blockhains would be a good idea to add security' in our web application because a customer mentioned them. If I were to send this MS Pain visualisation to my boss he'd still not understand anything about it. The subject is quite complex and the metaphor used is far to abstract for people who already struggle with describing the simplest require…

There's tons of people here on HN that know this stuff by heart, but as far as I understood: 1) I guess so, the blockchain contains the bitcoin transactions. 2) In order to add a block to the blockchain, you need to mix the block's fingerprint with a random value and shake, hoping for the mix to get a special and very recognisable appearance. If it doesn't work, you have to try a new random number (the block's finger…

Thank you for your explanation. It certainly clears a few things up.

With regards to "hoping for the mix to get a special and very recognisable appearance". What happens here concretely? What would 'very recognisable' entail?

Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#28

Post by mosselman »

m3ta wrote: post #25
mosselman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another comment in this thread I mentioned my boss asking our team if 'blockhains would be a good idea to add security' in our web application because a customer mentioned them. If I were to send this MS Pain visualisation to my boss he'd still not understand anything about it. The subject is quite complex and the metaphor used is far to abstract for people who already struggle with describing the simplest require…

The subject could be seen as very complex but for most use-cases there is a simple litmus test. Do you need censorship-resistant transactions or a neutral/decentralized timestamping server? If not, then you don't need a blockchain. That's really it. In the case of a vendor, accepting _bitcoin_ has own security advantages, and bitcoin comes with its own blockchain built-in. As a vendor you probably wouldn't really nee…

I will keep your answer in mind when I get asked this question again. Thank you.

Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#29

Post by mosselman »

juhovh wrote: post #16
mosselman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another comment in this thread I mentioned my boss asking our team if 'blockhains would be a good idea to add security' in our web application because a customer mentioned them. If I were to send this MS Pain visualisation to my boss he'd still not understand anything about it. The subject is quite complex and the metaphor used is far to abstract for people who already struggle with describing the simplest require…

1. The transactions. 2. The mechanism used to determine what 'mining' bitcoins means is defined by the bitcoin client software implementation. In case of bitcoin it is about finding a suitable random number by using brute force. 3. I believe the cartoon is using sahti in comparison to bitcoins or ether or any internal currency used in a public blockchain.

Thank you for your answer.

With regards to 2, what would define a 'a suitable random number'?

Re: Blockchain, with Santa Claus, in shameless MS Paint

#30

Post by Udik »

mosselman wrote: post #27
Udik wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's tons of people here on HN that know this stuff by heart, but as far as I understood: 1) I guess so, the blockchain contains the bitcoin transactions. 2) In order to add a block to the blockchain, you need to mix the block's fingerprint with a random value and shake, hoping for the mix to get a special and very recognisable appearance. If it doesn't work, you have to try a new random number (the block's finger…

Thank you for your explanation. It certainly clears a few things up. With regards to "hoping for the mix to get a special and very recognisable appearance". What happens here concretely? What would 'very recognisable' entail?

Very late reply, but in case anybody sees this. The "shaken mix" of fingerprint + random number must produce a number that is lower than a certain target number. The most visible consequence of this is that the accepted numbers must begin with a string of zeros (as the number of digits is fixed, as in 0003 is lower than 0123).

Example:

Not a good mix: 1312af178c253f84028d480a6adc1e25e81caa44c749ec81976192e2ec934c64

A good mix: 0000000000000000057fcc708cf0130d95e27c5819203e9f967ac56e4df598ee

This "shaken mix" is a SHA-256 hash of the current block plus a random number. SHA-256 is an algorithm that generates a "fingerprint" (called "hash") of a block of data, in such a way that it is not possible to determine, from the fingerprint itself, which data might have generated it [otherwise it would be possible to start from (a set of) desired fingerprints and calculate back to the set of possible blocks that could generate them].

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