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How Blockchain Works

blockchain.mit.edu

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Re: How Blockchain Works

#31

Post by easymodex »

the_snooze wrote: post #23
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.

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 da…

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court battle and your yacht and so on.

Solution: blockchain smart contracts where code is law, more secure, trustworthy and transparent than any individual, bank, government or company.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#32

Post by Moodles »

easymodex wrote: post #31
the_snooze wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court…

You are trying to solve a problem with a blockchain that does not exist. Also, exactly how does your blockchain even know "this yacht now belongs to this person"?

Re: How Blockchain Works

#33

Post by thedancollins »

Over the past year I have gone from Blockchain enthusiast to more blockchain gadfly. The concept is truly revolutionary but the use cases I typically see trotted out are not compelling in any significant sense and could be solved without blockchain. I believe the reason for this is due to the fact that the true value of a blockchain solution is not in the data aspect of it (which everyone gravitates to and can quickly grasp and understand) but more in the transactability that a blockchain solution can offer. And the value of radical transactability requires much less of a myopic understanding of a person's business vertical than many professionals possess. In energy for instance, much talk about the financial aspect of a blockchain-based energy solution but absolutely zero talk of how the physical grid and infrastructure would engage to support the financial activity.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#34

Post by gibsons77 »

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.

This is the example I was referring to: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8358773. The problem is one where there are multiple vehicles, from different manufacturers, that must communicate with each other in real time (say at an intersection) and must make decisions based on messages being relayed to them. This is easier if they are all following the same protocol.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#35

Post by creeble »

easymodex wrote: post #31
the_snooze wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court…

But you still lose your yacht because it's not in the blockchain.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#36

Post by Leace »

easymodex wrote: post #31
the_snooze wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court…

> blockchain smart contracts where code is law, more secure, trustworthy and transparent than any individual, bank, government or company.

The DAO issue [0] clearly showed that "code is law" doesn't really work. It's people writing cryptocurrency software and running the nodes that are "the law".

[0]: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-f...

Re: How Blockchain Works

#37

Post by tom_ »

Moodles wrote: post #32
easymodex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court…

You are trying to solve a problem with a blockchain that does not exist. Also, exactly how does your blockchain even know "this yacht now belongs to this person"?

It doesn't. You go to court like normal people.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#38

Post by briatx »

easymodex wrote: post #31
the_snooze wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court…

But code isn't law. You would have to rewrite parts of the legal system to support blockchain tokens as representing actual ownership, and there's strong reasons why you would never want to, such as loss of private keys, forgetting of passwords, or security vulnerabilities, or user error leading to complete asset loss.

Otherwise you have a synchronization problem between the upcoming blockchain token system and the existing government deed registry, and of course the government registry would take preference, and has a history of working just fine for lower cost.

This video is an excellent overview of this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxmXIgLEAIE

I haven't seen blockchain systems as being more secure or more trustworthy. I see them being overhyped, subject to lax and magical thinking, and full of theft of coins due to hacks and scams.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#39

Post by Moodles »

gibsons77 wrote: post #34
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.

This is the example I was referring to: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8358773 . The problem is one where there are multiple vehicles, from different manufacturers, that must communicate with each other in real time (say at an intersection) and must make decisions based on messages being relayed to them. This is easier if they are all following the same protocol.

There is no need to have a database replicated everywhere across a network and for all nodes in the network to be constantly engaging in a consensus protocol to agree upon the state on the ledger for some cars to communicate.

Almost always a blockchain is (i) useless or (ii) something kinda vaguely like Satoshi's blockchain but really more like Git.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#40

Post by the_snooze »

Moodles wrote: post #32
easymodex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court…

You are trying to solve a problem with a blockchain that does not exist. Also, exactly how does your blockchain even know "this yacht now belongs to this person"?

Exactly. How does the real world's state get accurately put into a blockchain? My big beef with all the blockchain hype is that this doesn't seem to be addressed. They say "trustless" and "secure" and "transparent" all the time, but those assurances only exist within the very limited confines of the data structure itself. As soon as you hook it into real-world data, then those assurances only guarantee that fraud is accurately carried out.
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