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Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

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Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#81

Post by betwixthewires »

rbanffy wrote: post #54

I was fully expecting to see an empty HTML page. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only new idea here is to use a ledger to hold public keys associated with an identity. You could add keys by signing a new key with one of the previously globally accepted ones proving you are that entity and the same would go for removing a lost one, by signing a new message with all the remaining keys. Having a key copied without your…

It's not about using a ledger to hold public keys. The keys exist regardless of the ledger. The idea is to use the ledger to indisputably prove ownership or control over resources. Could be money, could be access to certain services, could be files, anything.

Also, the ledger doesn't have to be public.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#82

Post by lottin »

spinny wrote: post #51
thesandlord wrote: post #5

My big question with using a Web3 login is what advantages it gives the website owner. With social Web 2.0 login, I can be fairly sure the person logging in has a valid email address, a name, etc, and it is a single click for the user vs filling in all the info all over again. With a Web3 login, it is basically the same. Except I'm not really given any personal info like name or email, so I need ask them for that any…

People already use ENS do register a .eth name to the respective ethereum address. It's also easy to write a smart contract that keeps meta-info on an address. This data would be public. > Why does currency and money need to get involved? It doesn't. You only need a blockchain to keep public data. You can sign a message and login with that, no need to send a transaction, can be done with balance 0

Buy I thought the whole point was "owning your identity"... and know you're suggesting that we should put or personal data on a blockchain so everybody can see it?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#83

Post by endisneigh »

pxue wrote: post #63
kradeelav wrote: post #23

... why would I want to share my wallet to something I trust less than a strange dog? Or part of my identity? No thanks. One of the great things about usernames/passwords is it didn't demand that vulnerability - you could come up with whatever and it was your responsibility to keep up with your shit. Systems that mimic real world systems on average feel less prone to this silliness.

email/password is terrible UX for vast majority of user. it's forgettable, it's not secure, and it exists only because it have existed since dawn of computers.

I disagree. Email and password is terrible compared to what?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#84

Post by endisneigh »

So what happens when you get phished with Web3? If the value of all crypto goes down 10% YoY why would you use it?

The author makes a bunch of silly assumptions:

> We need some way of saying “who we are” on the internet in a consistent manner. That way we can communicate with others in a verified way and associate with digital data that we own. We also often need that data to be interoperable between different web properties.

No, this is not true. That's why most people on this site are not logging in through Google. Sites will store their own data, and if you trust them to store that data there’s really no reason to just trust them to store a link to your identity.

The author advocates third parties like Metamask and using a Chrome extension, which is ridiculous. If you're going to trust that, why not trust Microsoft, or Amazon, or Google?

> With social recovery, instead of having to trust Google, you can choose who you trust, and instead trust a given set of friends, family, and services

Yes, because Google is not a service.

Ultimately the author makes up a problem and says blockchain is the solution.

Even if we suppose it's a solution there's no discussion around phishing, stolen identities, or any failure mode really. Of course there isn't though - in general recourse requires an authority. Blockchain has none.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#86

Post by llbeansandrice »

mwattsun wrote: post #62

I'm reading this with an open mind, but I have questions: > Problem #1: Owning Your Own Digital Identity & Fixing Authentication My very technical friends who are security minded are on keybase.io. Multiple usernames and passwords across the internet is solved in various ways without blockchain. There are a lot of good password managers (I use and encrypted text file.) I don't feel Google owns my identity because I u…

> The idea here is that you could give keys to your friends and family, or to some sort of business service, then if you lose your key, use your friends to “vouch” for you and move the account to a new key.

Facebook already has this functionality and it's an absolutely massive pain if you're somehow not on their happy path. With no real way to figure out what the issue is and get it fixed or on the happy path.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#87

Post by mexicanandre »

All these “web 2” companies are going to create their own “web 3” services that will only work on their own product, and we have overly complicated solutions to an issue which didn’t really need solving.

Can’t wait for my reddit or meta tokens which have a zero value.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#88

Post by whywhywhywhy »

jdlshore wrote: post #11

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years. It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug. Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was p…

> I don't see how a blockchain-based approach, with so many disadvantages compared to Persona, could possibly succeed outside of the blockchain enthusiast community

What’s in it for the user to sign up for persona? Nothing

What’s in it for the user to get a crypto wallet? Money

There’s your answer.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#89

Post by mattlondon »

betwixthewires wrote: post #76
mattlondon wrote: post #67

> We need some way of saying “who we are” on the internet in a consistent manner. That way we can communicate with others in a verified way and associate with digital data that we own. We also often need that data to be interoperable between different web properties. Do we really need this? Do we really want to permanently tie identity across websites like this? I find this initial "need"/justification/requirement qu…

So the thing about this is that there is no need to permanently tie identity across all sites and services you used (and provide), rather, the ability to do so when and where you need to do it. There's nothing requiring a user to use the same identity across every service they interact with, but the option should be there. I wouldn't want my matrix username(s) and my fediverse account(s) tied to my HN username(s), bu…

So if you are not going to go whole-hog and have one true identity for everything, why bother using anything apart from an email address?

The argument seems to be that consistency allows you to prove ownership and re-use all of your content etc across the web by tying everything back to one verified identity. If you are having different identities on different sites then that benefit disappears, and I fail to see how it is then any better than using email addresses? You end up with different wallet IDs each with their own island of content, just like you have with email addresses.

Sure you could chose to "move" content with one of your many identities by just logging in with the ID (presumably losing all of your existing content), but we have copy-paste for that already (and I am only half-joking saying that...)

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#90

Post by thebean11 »

pkulak wrote: post #73
mattlondon wrote: post #67

> We need some way of saying “who we are” on the internet in a consistent manner. That way we can communicate with others in a verified way and associate with digital data that we own. We also often need that data to be interoperable between different web properties. Do we really need this? Do we really want to permanently tie identity across websites like this? I find this initial "need"/justification/requirement qu…

Private keys are cheap to make. There's no reason you couldn't have a different one for every site. Of course, then it's on you to keep track of them, but it's already on you to keep track of the credentials you're using now. At least this way, the default of "use the same creds everywhere" is secure, if not more private.

This is already solved by existing crypto wallet tooling too, you can create an infinite number of keys all derived from a single root key (usually a 12-20 word phrase in modern wallets). A service with access to a single child public or even private key can't tie them to the sibling keys.
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