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The Web3 Fraud

usenix.org

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Re: The Web3 Fraud

#201

Post by uncomputation »

selestify wrote: post #112
jjnoakes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are easy mitigations for those things though. My self hosted apps run on immutable infrastructure and are replicated and load balanced. Still stupid cheap and easy.

> My self hosted apps run on immutable infrastructure and are replicated and load balanced What? Assuming you live in the US, the government can swoop in at any time (provided they have a legal reason to do so) and demand that AWS or whoever's hosting your servers shuts them down. If you're hosting them yourself, they can raid the physical locations where you host them. If you're not in the US, I'm sure your country…

> code immutability guarantees

Phrased another way, “bug immortality guarantees.” What is the use case for completely immutable software? Even Ethereum smart contracts do not actually guarantee the compiled byte code matches the supposed source of the contract, so while it might be immutable, it is not free. I think the bigger concern is not that the code will update - updates are good, especially ones for bug fixes like the log4j vulnerability recently - but that the code they say is running, is not actually running.

And let’s assume that we need to update our code. You need to pay to deploy an entirely new contract and then have some sort of “pointer”/gateway that redirects all your users to the new patched contract, and then we’re right back where we started where this gateway can be forced by law to not direct people to your contract much like Google can be DMCA’d to not show copyright violations.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#202

Post by selestify »

brandonmenc wrote: post #80
v64 wrote: post #13

Many criticisms of blockchain apps, comparing their use cases to conventional technologies (databases, conventional separation of services such as that described in the article, etc) all seem to miss a major point: Dapps running on the blockchain are immutable and highly resistant to being shutdown. Immutability is important because it's guaranteed that no matter how many times you interact with a contract address, y…

> Dapps running on the blockchain are immutable I can think of very few systems I'd want to use where nothing can be deleted. I don't understand why this is seemingly considered a feature for all use cases.

> I don't understand why this is seemingly considered a feature for all use cases.

Who says it's a feature for all use cases? It's a feature for some use cases. For those use cases, it's a major feature.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#203

Post by koonsolo »

endisneigh wrote: post #5

I don’t understand what problem web3 can solve that a trusted entity cannot. And let’s keep in mind your reply to this comment will be using a trusted entity. In fact in the history of the internet I cannot find a single example of any technology working better in a decentralized fashion compared to centralized for the end user

Ok, so now we're all agreeing that we want central trusted entities.

And on the next post, we will all agree that something needs to be done about the power of Google, Meta, Twitter, YouTube, ... .

HN is really obsessed about anti web3, like crazy obessed. You will never see any nice thing top voted here.

Ok HN, you don't like web3, I get it. Now can you all please shut the fuck up about it? If I don't like something, I just avoid it, stop talking about it.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#204

Post by withinboredom »

esjeon wrote: post #166
dexter89_kp3 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what problem email can solve that mail cannot. Sorry to be sarcastic. I am still skeptical of most web3 use cases touted on twitter, but have personally experienced a few that have made me pause and be a bit more open minded. Personal experiences: - Transferring money was in seconds, compared to Fidelity/Venmo which took 3 days!!! - Very easy to loan money against crypto holdings vs stocks - Resear…

> I don't understand what problem email can solve that mail cannot. I think it's a wrong example. Email provides light-speed delivery, dirt-cheap cost, and brain-dead convenience on top of also being able to mail. So email actually never competed with mail. Web3 is yet to strike any decisive blow against today's web (or it may never). It's more like another part of the web. > Transferring money was in seconds, compar…

Here in the NL, we’ve been able to send money for free to each other instantly, for at least half a decade. We use apps like Tikkie to mask each other’s bank account numbers and automate some of the book keeping for many transactions, but we don’t technically need the app in the first place.

The US is very slow to move money, I still dread any time I have to use my old US bank accounts to get things done.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#205

Post by selestify »

uncomputation wrote: post #201
selestify wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My self hosted apps run on immutable infrastructure and are replicated and load balanced What? Assuming you live in the US, the government can swoop in at any time (provided they have a legal reason to do so) and demand that AWS or whoever's hosting your servers shuts them down. If you're hosting them yourself, they can raid the physical locations where you host them. If you're not in the US, I'm sure your country…

> code immutability guarantees Phrased another way, “bug immortality guarantees.” What is the use case for completely immutable software? Even Ethereum smart contracts do not actually guarantee the compiled byte code matches the supposed source of the contract, so while it might be immutable, it is not free. I think the bigger concern is not that the code will update - updates are good, especially ones for bug fixes…

> Even Ethereum smart contracts do not actually guarantee the compiled byte code matches the supposed source of the contract

What? You don't have to publish your smart contract code for the public to verify, but you absolutely can. And once you do, the public can absolutely verify that the smart contract code you provided does in fact compile to the byte code deployed to the blockchain.

> and then we’re right back where we started where this gateway can be forced by law to not direct people to your contract much like Google can be DMCA’d to not show copyright violations.

You don't have to include that upgrade functionality in your smart contracts. Or if you do include upgrade functionality, you can limit what sort of functionality can be upgraded. Otherwise, yes, it's no different than just running your own server and changing the code all of a sudden with the users being none the wiser.

Question is, if you don't limit your upgrade functionality, are your users going to trust you not to rugpull?

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#206

Post by selestify »

DannyBee wrote: post #85
selestify wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you're replying to has already addressed your points: > Yes, blockchains are slower and more expensive. This is the current cost of enabling the two facets above. If we're not comparing blockchain dapps to other systems that offer the same assurances, then we're comparing apples and oranges. Could you please respond more meaningfully to the conversation?

They didn't address the points - they tried to say nobody gets to compare other things unless they do . Which is wrong.

They said it's an apples to oranges comparison unless both things do . Which is absolutely correct. You could compare apples to oranges if you wanted to... but usually there's no point in doing so.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#207

Post by exdsq »

paxys wrote: post #193
exdsq wrote: post #162

I do really dislike this general attitude that blockchain/web3/crypto is some elaborate scam with no benefits. Everyone focuses on the same negatives but never look at the interesting elements like solving the double spend problem, safely transferring digital assets in a trustless environment, having a working global computing system with inbuilt incentives, etc.. Yes there are crap uses at the moment. NFTs are a bub…

The problem is that I have been hearing about all these amazing use cases for crypto/blockchain for over a decade now, and not a single one has materialized that is useful for me or any other common user who is not involved in the community. The entire ecosystem is circular. All web3 apps are about web3. And what point does it start adding value outside of pushing itself?

This is fair, I wish more teams were working on the boring useful use-cases.

One I particularly like is gig tickets. Represent them as NFTs, prove ownership of the ticket as it is in your wallet, trade them for USD with anyone around the world in a single atomic transaction, use third party tools to verify a ticket is authentic (either manually copying an NFT address onto a bands website or programatically). Suddenly I can sell you a ticket to a band we both like from a link in this message and you can guarantee if you pay you get the ticket and if I send the ticket I get the payment, and you can guarantee the ticket is authentic by checking it was one of the originally minted tickets. Boring, bad UX, but solves a multi-million dollar issue in the ticket reselling market. These are the peer-to-peer systems I wish people focused on. Sadly a couple million just isn't that cool in the web3 space.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#208

Post by withinboredom »

spijdar wrote: post #188
withinboredom wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think multiplayer games are running a blockchain and they agree on shared state. Humans being humans tend to reject cheaters who manipulate the state in their favor. But you don’t need a blockchain for any of this, and in fact, it’s too slow to have shared state /in real time/.

While I'm not really big on "Blockchain all the things!" this might be a poor analogy, considering just how many big multiplayer games use very intrusive, almost rootkit level anticheat software to, effectively, try and force all clients to behave and share state fairly...

Hmm. Might be a poor analogy then. I’ve never had any issues with anti-cheat software or ever noticed it’s existence — other than an icon on a splash page.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#209

Post by selestify »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #73
systemvoltage wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not talking about Crypto (I presume you mean crypto currencies). I am talking about technologies that enable centralization vs. decentralization.

I’m am specially speaking about blockchains, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the like, not IPFS, DHTs, or improvements to existing internet technologies (mutable torrents, webtorrent) to support decentralized storage, discovery, or name resolution. The “web3” nomenclature throws it all together, which is annoying. DeFi =! Dweb

What's the difference between the first group of technologies you mention, and the second, other than the fact that a large group of investors has piled onto the first, whereas the second is basically non-profit? Do you refuse to acknowledge the value-add to decentralization that the first group brings?

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#210

Post by withinboredom »

selestify wrote: post #200
withinboredom wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good luck raiding every single Ethereum node I’m just waiting for the day when governments decide that all this crypto is hurting the environment more than necessary for no real gain and forces ISPs to block this traffic. Similar to how many ISPs block serving DNS or SMTP from residential IPs.

Then that'll be the day proof of stake cryptos rise to the occasion. Also, just use a friggin VPN.

IMHO, VPNs scare me more than ISPs spying on me. I ran a small ISP (<100 subscribers) and the sheer amount of data you could collect on a single person was mind boggling. This was pre-https-all-the-things, so I’m sure it’s better these days. Still, do I really want my traffic to go through some unregulated entity? Not really…
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