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Colony: A platform for open organizations

colony.io

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Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#121

Post by popcorncowboy »

mgkabar wrote: post #119
stefano wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> well, the answer is simply ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's not a great answer to a very realistic case.

I think the many sentences that come before the shrug emoji illustrate that the case is not very realistic. You're taking the final, sarcastic closing comment out of context.

On the contrary. This is a core project team member saying that in the event a dedicated agent IS sufficiently motivated and DOES manage to compromise a Colony, "well, the answer is simply ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

The many sentences that come before the shrug do nothing to address the very realistic scenario of a breach. The "sarcastic closing comment" was in fact the final truth of it.

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#122

Post by mtnygard »

gedrap wrote: post #92
popcorncowboy wrote: post #85

Here are just two thought experiments I'd love to hear Colony/elena_di explain: Hypothetical 1: You and a growing team of incredibly engaged Colony members build out a $10M/yr revenue stream. Edge case leaks 87% of tokens to a dedicated hacker. Sorry? Hypothetical 2: I like/hate your successful Colony. So I locate and bribe/extort your main influencer/s to push your project into the ground (block work, object to ever…

> I locate and bribe/extort your main influencer/s to push your project into the ground (block work, object to everything, whatever) or in my preferred direction How's that any different from the current state? Execs of current companies are humans with power to run the company into the ground. You can extort/bribe them like that as well. How does it change anything?

It happens, but when it does happen, people have recourse to a totally different system: the courts. I think of it like raising the issue up out of the system Corporate Management and into the system Legal Enforcement.

It is patently not a perfect system, but the failures are notable because they are not common. Most shareholder lawsuits against management are resolved before anyone ends up in headlines.

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#125

Post by mgkabar »

popcorncowboy wrote: post #121
mgkabar wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the many sentences that come before the shrug emoji illustrate that the case is not very realistic. You're taking the final, sarcastic closing comment out of context.

On the contrary. This is a core project team member saying that in the event a dedicated agent IS sufficiently motivated and DOES manage to compromise a Colony, "well, the answer is simply ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" The many sentences that come before the shrug do nothing to address the very realistic scenario of a breach. The "sarcastic closing comment" was in fact the final truth of it.

It really seems like the most appropriate response to this is indeed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You're assuming quite a lot of this hypothetical hacker - the response above clearly addresses the hypothetical by stating "here are the relevant reasons why this hypothetical is impossible or at least unlikely, and here are the relevant sections in the whitepaper for more verbose information".

>The many sentences that come before the shrug do nothing to address the very realistic scenario of a breach.

If you're assuming blackhat success for any conceivable project/company/database regardless of security measures taken to prevent it, what would an appropriate response even look like? What kind of answer would satisfy you?

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#127

Post by bmelton »

iakh wrote: post #97
tinkerrr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of such a knee-jerk reaction to crypto, perhaps you can ask if the crypto token involved makes sense in this use case. If it doesn't, like in 99% of the cases, you can dismiss it then. Colony, IMHO, is one of the few projects where it does make sense to have a token.

Can you help me understand why a token makes sense in this case? It seems just as easy to implement this concept as Colony SaaS.

If it's like Assembly, the coins/tokens themselves don't have value _per se_, they just represent ownership. Basically, in this case, it's acting more of a ledger to represent equity than as the commodity it's typically used as.

An example:

UserA posts a great idea, and wants help to implement it. UserA is an MBA, has a business plan, a rough idea of execution, etc., but is not a programmer, or a graphic designer, or anything like that. UserA realizes she needs help, so she posts bounties - with features relative to the importance of the success of the project. "Need a landing page" might be a feature, with tasks broken out like "design a logo", "build a wireframe in Sketch", "convert Sketch wireframe to React frontend", etc. Each of those tasks will have a value, represented by Ether.

UserB, a graphic designer comes up with the perfect logo, which is worth 100 ether. User C, a frontend developer picks up the wireframe task, gets consensus, and then bangs out the React work, for a total of 250 ether. Other work gets done and an MVP is launched. The MVP was built, and a total of 5,000 ether were distributed as bounties were claimed and completed. User B has gone on to do a bunch of other graphic design tasks, and has a total of 600 ether, while User C left the project after completing the frontend work. The project's MVP launches, and makes $10,000 in profit. Because UserB has 600 ether, and 5,000 ether have been issued, UserB's share entitles him to ~12% of the profits, so he is disbursed a payment of $1200. UserC's share entitles him to $500.

As the project grows, UserB takes on more and more work, and more and more ether are issued. UserC doesn't ever come back on, but is still entitled to profits on the work they've done, though their share of ether will keep being diluted as the project goes on.

Hopefully I've been able to illustrate that the coin in this case is used not as currency itself, but as a representative stake in ownership.

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#128

Post by katelynsills »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #27
katelynsills wrote: post #9

This is really interesting. I've lately become more curious about theories of transaction costs - how traditional firms might have an advantage because they don't have to bargain over every decision and have understood lines of decision-making. I'm wondering if decentralized organizations might have a transaction cost problem.

I can't quite tell from your comment whether you are familiar with this as an existing topic in economics - if you're not, you might find this an interesting intro to the area of study http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/coase.htm

I wasn't until this week, so apparently I'm projecting just the right amount of knowledge :D Thanks for the link! I've been looking for opportunities to learn more.

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#129

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

popcorncowboy wrote: post #113
fab13n wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Edge case leaks 87% of tokens to a dedicated hacker. Sorry? The level of code safety in smart contracts is abysmally bad today, Ethereum didn't further the state of the art with EVM/Solidity (quite the opposite), and this needs to be fixed before any serious business can rely on a DApp. Smart contracts are like aerospace engineering, not like iStore apps development; delivering slightly buggy code, written as fa…

Precisely. > ...bribing executives and misleading shareholders You raise an interesting point - in a Colony there is presumably no concept of enforceable fiduciary duty to shareholders (because there are none - we're not trading securities, we're trading plastic house chips on a blockchain). There are no legislated considerations for other members/colonists/dappsters/etc. I can vote/act with impunity, regardless of v…

Just cause you hand out pieces of plastic (or tokens on a blockchain) instead of paper doesn't make it not a security. (As the ICOs are finding out!)

Security is as security does in a lot of these cases, so if it functions as a security, you're likely to run into encounters with the SEC.

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#130

Post by stefano »

mgkabar wrote: post #125
popcorncowboy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary. This is a core project team member saying that in the event a dedicated agent IS sufficiently motivated and DOES manage to compromise a Colony, "well, the answer is simply ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" The many sentences that come before the shrug do nothing to address the very realistic scenario of a breach. The "sarcastic closing comment" was in fact the final truth of it.

It really seems like the most appropriate response to this is indeed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You're assuming quite a lot of this hypothetical hacker - the response above clearly addresses the hypothetical by stating "here are the relevant reasons why this hypothetical is impossible or at least unlikely, and here are the relevant sections in the whitepaper for more verbose information". >The many sentences that come before the shru…

> What kind of answer would satisfy you?

In the real world, with an actual registered company/cooperative, you can call the police or sue people in court as a last resort. This is not possible in a distributed world, so a new kind of recourse needs to be invented, if that's even possible.

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