How Blockchain Works • Hacker News Board

Re: How Blockchain Works

#21

Post by easymodex » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

Moodles wrote: post #20

gibsons77 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well.. It will change some aspects of our world. Particularly financial assets at first, but increasingly it will play a role in any peer to peer exchange requiring trust. Simple past examples are systems like OpenPGP that bind public keys to owners. Programmable blockchains allow generalized applications requiring decentralized trust. A good example of a use of blockchain outside of financial assets is in trust mana…

I have a PhD in cryptography. Please be precise. Exactly what problem will blockchain solve for vehicles? You can't just hand wave and say stuff like "decentralized trust management" and expect us to nod along.

Trust and transparency.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#22

Post by chaosphere2112 » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

supersock wrote: post #18

hannasanarion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. Nobody says "one blockchain, two blockchain, oh hey look I found a bunch of new blockchain". Blockchain is here being used in reference to the technology itself, not the collection of its manifestations. Just like you might say "how the internal combustion engine works" or "how insertion sort works"

Does anyone say "here's one water, two waters"?

When ordering at a restaurant, yes.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#23

Post by the_snooze » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

Moodles wrote: post #20

gibsons77 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well.. It will change some aspects of our world. Particularly financial assets at first, but increasingly it will play a role in any peer to peer exchange requiring trust. Simple past examples are systems like OpenPGP that bind public keys to owners. Programmable blockchains allow generalized applications requiring decentralized trust. A good example of a use of blockchain outside of financial assets is in trust mana…

I have a PhD in cryptography. Please be precise. Exactly what problem will blockchain solve for vehicles? You can't just hand wave and say stuff like "decentralized trust management" and expect us to nod along.

Yeah, I'm quite skeptical of it as well. If I'm being really charitable to it, then it's a way to synchronize data between parties without relying on a trusted intermediary. That said, it's unclear what practical value that has outside of purely digital applications like cryptocurrency. When you roll it into things in the real world (e.g., supply chains, health records, etc.) then you necessarily have to trust the data sources and sensors, at which point what good is a blockchain?

Re: How Blockchain Works

#24

Post by Moodles » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

easymodex wrote: post #21

Moodles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a PhD in cryptography. Please be precise. Exactly what problem will blockchain solve for vehicles? You can't just hand wave and say stuff like "decentralized trust management" and expect us to nod along.

Trust and transparency.

Are you capable of being precise?

Re: How Blockchain Works

#25

Post by CraneWorm » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

supersock wrote: post #18

hannasanarion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. Nobody says "one blockchain, two blockchain, oh hey look I found a bunch of new blockchain". Blockchain is here being used in reference to the technology itself, not the collection of its manifestations. Just like you might say "how the internal combustion engine works" or "how insertion sort works"

Does anyone say "here's one water, two waters"?

> [...] words in English often carry a number of different meanings, and these can affect whether a word will be considered countable in one instance compared to another.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Uncountable-Nouns.htm

Re: How Blockchain Works

#26

Post by this_user » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

gibsons77 wrote: post #17

Moodles wrote: post #6

Now explain to a technical audience why some people say nonsense like how it’s the next internet or how it’ll change the world please.

Well.. It will change some aspects of our world. Particularly financial assets at first, but increasingly it will play a role in any peer to peer exchange requiring trust. Simple past examples are systems like OpenPGP that bind public keys to owners. Programmable blockchains allow generalized applications requiring decentralized trust. A good example of a use of blockchain outside of financial assets is in trust mana…

A blockchain is just a type of data structure. I have yet to see any use case, outside of building crypto currencies, that could not be realised without it. The problem is not that the technology did not exist before, the problem is that people and organisations were slow or unwilling to adopt it. But that is not the type of issue that will be solved by introducing new technology, and almost all blockchain advocates seem to completely oblivious to these dynamics of human behaviour.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#27

Post by monocasa » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

supersock wrote: post #18

hannasanarion wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. Nobody says "one blockchain, two blockchain, oh hey look I found a bunch of new blockchain". Blockchain is here being used in reference to the technology itself, not the collection of its manifestations. Just like you might say "how the internal combustion engine works" or "how insertion sort works"

Does anyone say "here's one water, two waters"?

When they're discrete, yes.

Like asking someone "can you grab a couple waters while you're in the kitchen?"

Re: How Blockchain Works

#28

Post by justicezyx » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

gibsons77 wrote: post #17

Moodles wrote: post #6

Now explain to a technical audience why some people say nonsense like how it’s the next internet or how it’ll change the world please.

Well.. It will change some aspects of our world. Particularly financial assets at first, but increasingly it will play a role in any peer to peer exchange requiring trust. Simple past examples are systems like OpenPGP that bind public keys to owners. Programmable blockchains allow generalized applications requiring decentralized trust. A good example of a use of blockchain outside of financial assets is in trust mana…

The logical reasoning is full of gap and holes that I cannot bother to rebuttal, because I am afraid of wasting my time.

But I think Block chain can succeed. It matters less that it works, as long as the rich and powerful believe it can help then sustain their status.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#29

Post by thallukrish » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:27 PM UTC

After a long time of procrastinating understanding block chains, I could watch the whole video and understand it finally. Thanks for the great visual explanation.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#30

Post by dsco » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

For the Javascript lovers out there, I wrote a client-side project which conceptually demonstrates how a blockchain works. It runs in your browser and uses web workers to concurrently mine blocks, showing how miners, transactions and addresses fit together.

https://github.com/sunmer/lightchain