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You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

blog.smartdec.net

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Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my electoral system, yes. I'm in Europe and it's a paper ballot. In the US, no in many places. And not being able ask for a recount when there's any degree of suspicion about the outcome is an absolute disgrace IMHO. As to the other point you raised, you may want to check this video, which outlines research that tears your hopes apart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iit5WdLYwns And per my initial comment, if you…

>if you can access your vote through a code, then your vote or that of others can be bought // Isn't that the status quo, currently it can be bought but no one can verify; under my system it can be verified by the person in the poll both. If someone paid you then you give them the "vote code" that corresponded, for you, at the time you voted, they falsely verify and you can still actually verify - in most votes just…

"Proof of counting" is part of making a poll auditable:

While you cast your ballot, there are trustworthy observers who keep an eye on the transparent ballot box, and have been doing so from the moment the poll opens until when it closes. They then watch as the box gets opened, and overlook the shoulders of those who count as the votes get tallied. Depending on whether there are enough volunteers around, there can be occasional or systematic spot checks to boot. And when it's all tallied, the ballots are put in a sealed box and stored in the event anyone requests a recount down the road, making the entire process auditable.

This process is meant to avoid things like the box arriving pre-filled with some ballots before the polls open, voters stuffing multiple ballots in the box, the box getting replaced during or after the vote, votes being ignored or misrepresented during the count, etc.

And just for clarity, I've little idea of how it's working where I live, because I'm not entitled to vote there. But this is how it's supposed to be working, and having worked in the sector a bit I'd want electronic voting to offer a similar set of guarantees before accepting it as a viable alternative to paper ballots.

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. In large part because paper ballots offer these guarantees. But there's a swath of elections and voting going on (in universities, within political parties or unions, etc., but also official elections in parts of the US or in Estonia) that that use e-voting to cut costs or improve participation. They currently lack these guarantees yet those elected end up in charge of millions in budget.

In Estonia you verify your vote if you voted online. You can do so up to 3 times and only within 30 minutes of voting. E-voting is done on a PC. After you've finished voting a QR code pops up. You can scan that QR code with your voting verification app on your phone and it'll send you the results. Here's how the system works: https://www.valimised.ee/en/internet-voting/principles-check...

But here's how it's not working:

https://jasonkitcat.com/category/voting/

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#393
post #245

I've recently been thinking about a blockchain use case that I have not seen mentioned: security. It seems like log obfuscation is a common tactic used to cover tracks after a break in. Thus it seems like a blockchain could be used in a logging system so that a falsified log would trigger an alert.

systemd's log subsystem has been doing exactly that since 2012: https://lwn.net/Articles/512895/ Although here's a detail i didn't know: The algorithm for FSS is based on "Forward Secure Pseudo Random Generators" (FSPRG), which comes from some post-doctoral research by Poettering's brother Bertram. So that's just peachy.

Hah, of course.

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any graphs as like I said it's just my opinion. I'm really only basing it off of 4 things. 1. The general excitement around Lightning Network on Twitter with Jack and tippin.me, as well as this website: https://lightningnetworkstores.com/ 2. Coinbase's reported 48,000 merchants/partners reported here: https://www.coinbase.com/clients?locale=en-US 3. I frequent similar places everyday - 2 out of the 3 pla…

1. LN won’t serve the worlds needs it will take 35 years to open a channel for everyone on earth and another 35 years to close it again, assuming the population doesn’t grow. 2. Coinbase merchants take out fiat like bitpay merchants because their suppliers take real money, and so does the tax man. Holding crypto exposes them to unbelievable forex risk. If they took bitcoin and held it over the last year how on earth…

1. I have to admit, if you are going to be so vehemently angry against anyone who even talks about Bitcoin as being potentially useful, I'd suggest you do at least 5 minutes of googling. Channel Factories -> https://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/a20a865ce40d40c8f942cf206a7c... Cool stuff, I doubt you'll actually read it, but there's the link anyway.

2. Whoa look at that -> You can pay your taxes in Ohio in Bitcoin. So apparently "how on earth would they pay their tax bills" means send them BTC if they live in Ohio :). Suggesting that because you can't pay taxes or pay suppliers right now with Bitcoin, and therefore it will never be useful or capable of those things is such a silly argument. I certainly don't believe we live in a world where you can buy anything with BTC right now, but like I said my statement was about us trending in that way (Still waiting on all those graphs showing the opposite by the way).

3. Damn, I forgot I can't use anecdotes to influence my opinion. Thanks for reminding me.

4. Don't ask me -> ask the data. https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/VES/BTC "35,000 Bitcoin (worth around $127 million at today's prices) was traded for bolívar on the LocalBitcoins crypto exchange over the entire course of last year." Maybe they would be better off with dollars, but Bitcoin is much easier to transfer across borders, and much easier to hold on your person without signaling that you are carrying thousands of dollars.

I'm happy to talk more about crypto with you, although I'm not sure you are open to actually talk honestly about it - seeing as how you took the time to negatively respond to every post I made on this subject. If there is something that has made you so angry about Bitcoin, I'd be happy to learn it to see if I'm supporting something that I shouldn't.

I'm certainly not arguing that Bitcoin is the perfect solution, nor that it's super helpful or accessible today. But, I don't think absolutely denying any use is a smart strategy, and I'd rather have you make legitimate counter arguments where you've actually spent the time to learn things rather than the lax effort you've put in so far.

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#395

The anti-blockchain sentiment seems severely short-sighted when news like Youtube coming up with new ways to push people off its platform are posted within three hours of this submission.[1] Where do we move the endless amount of unique content to, once that previously trusted party breaks down? Be it greed, bad management, economics that just won't work out or whatever. Are we just going to watch it disappear? Is th…

Youtube has been operating at a loss for most of its existence. The only reason it can host high bandwidth videos is because it is part of a bigger profitable entity, Google.

Can crypto projects figure out a way to build a working social platform without losing money?

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#396
post #9

I'm reminded of the helpful "How to decide if blockchain is right for your project" flowchart ( https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPFvZuqU8AAeU0C?format=jpg ) from @MalwareTechBlog.

Actually, I come to a similar conclusion in the article) Just trying to be less categorical and give them a chance)

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#397

The main argument is a logical fallacy: just because some trust is still required doesn't mean there's no value in minimizing it. The land registry argument is the best example of this fallacy >the regulatory authority can make its own record and thus rewrite yours, which means that blockchain doesn’t work. No, the value is precisely the fact that it's the regulatory authority that forcibly changes ownership, and not…

Thank you so much for such a detailed comment!

I agree about your first point: acknowledging only trust elimination and denying trust minimization is a simplification from my side. However, I have not seen successfull examples of "trust minimization" so far though it is always suggested in the context of blockchain. Maybe the reason is that the part on which the trust can be minimized by BC is usually not the weekest link.

I also agree that BC could prevent some percent of deed frauds. However, if you consider my argument about not decentralized example land registry BC maintenance you will agree that in many cases this may leed to a forgery, not possible in Bitcoin blockchain.

I completely disagree on a tokenization part. Unless we have a well-described and tested business model. these are more dreams and handwaving than a real use case. It is easy to say "tokenize this and that", the devil is in the detailes.

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#398
post #31

I've spent a lot of time doing consulting around blockchains for fortune 500 companies. Most technology choices are not a need. You can use MongoDB or MySQL in most cases. There are places where MongoDB has benefits, just as there are cases where a permissioned, immutable record has benefits. It's not a silver bullet, but it can add trust. This article seems to miss that creating immutable records of intermediary att…

I agree! I don't consider audit use case here(mostly not to make the article too big, saving this example for further reasearch and publications), as well as many other "reducing trust" use cases. Do you have any example of such systems being implemented?

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#399
post #31

I've spent a lot of time doing consulting around blockchains for fortune 500 companies. Most technology choices are not a need. You can use MongoDB or MySQL in most cases. There are places where MongoDB has benefits, just as there are cases where a permissioned, immutable record has benefits. It's not a silver bullet, but it can add trust. This article seems to miss that creating immutable records of intermediary att…

The big problem with these kind of arguments is that is misses the interface between the real world and the blockchain. Say I have a blockchain that tracks births and deaths. Now if I see a record on there I can be assured it hasn't been tampered with. But that tells me nothing about how it was created - was the person entering the data acting with malfeasance? All blockchain does is audit the data after its creation…

That's right! "Even though blockchain does not allow for modification of data, it cannot ensure such data is correct. The only exception is on-chain transactions, when the system does not need the real world, with all necessary information already being within the blockchain, thus allowing the system to verify data (e.g. that an address has enough funds to proceed with a transaction)."

However, I disagree that current money systems solve the problems solved by Bitcoin, but this is completely different discussion)

Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

#400
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem with these kind of arguments is that is misses the interface between the real world and the blockchain. Say I have a blockchain that tracks births and deaths. Now if I see a record on there I can be assured it hasn't been tampered with. But that tells me nothing about how it was created - was the person entering the data acting with malfeasance? All blockchain does is audit the data after its creation…

This criticism is valid but it's not a problem blockchain is trying to solve. It merely acts as a way to have immutable records. Regardless of if you use a blockchain solution or not, the fact that real world corruption or ignorance can lead to rogue data is an issue that exists in both cases.

The question is: does it make using blockchain pointless? I don't have the answer. The thing is, the only working blockchain use case - money - does not operate with real-world (non-reliable) data.
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