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Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

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Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#91

Post by rbanffy »

betwixthewires wrote: post #81
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.

If the ledger is not public, why would I trust it? If someone else claims they are you, how would I differentiate the conflicting claims?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#92

Post by thebean11 »

endisneigh wrote: post #84

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 pr…

Identities on Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are not portable. They can permanently ban you and you lose access to every single service you used them to authenticate to.

Private keys are portable between wallets.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#93

Post by yosito »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #88
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.

I don't know. Brave promised me money, and I still haven't gotten anything of significant value from that.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#94

Post by jeroenhd »

spinny wrote: post #57
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #20

Why can't this be done with existing public key cryptography?

It can. It just happens that the easiest way to achieve this is using web3, even if there is no blockchains involved. The article is about login methods, not cryptos or web3

> It just happens that the easiest way to achieve this is using web3

Is it? U2F is actually rolling out to more and more websites but I've never seen any website offer to log in with a dropdown for cryptocurrencies

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#95

Post by endisneigh »

thebean11 wrote: post #92
endisneigh wrote: post #84

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 pr…

Identities on Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are not portable. They can permanently ban you and you lose access to every single service you used them to authenticate to. Private keys are portable between wallets.

What you’re saying is also true with web3. A bad actor’s key could be banned and a list of bad actors could be shared among sites resulting in the same thing.

In fact, if you believe in privacy at all you’d want to reject this idea for that alone.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#96

Post by thebean11 »

endisneigh wrote: post #95
thebean11 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Identities on Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are not portable. They can permanently ban you and you lose access to every single service you used them to authenticate to. Private keys are portable between wallets.

What you’re saying is also true with web3. A bad actor’s key could be banned and a list of bad actors could be shared among sites resulting in the same thing. In fact, if you believe in privacy at all you’d want to reject this idea for that alone.

Sure, multiple independent sites could individually ban you. That's a fundamentally different problem, and much much less likely.

An antidote to that would be using a different key on each site you authenticate to. You still only need to store a single key, all other keys are derived from that yet cannot be associated with their sibling keys.

> What you’re saying is also trust with web3.

Not quite sure what you mean here, web3 is a pretty overloaded term. If you mean the very concept of web3..that's pretty fundamentally different from trusting a company that can unilaterally ban you, alter your data etc. There is no such parallel in web3. If you mean the JS library, that's also fundamentally different, and it's not the only game in town.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#97

Post by rbanffy »

iskander wrote: post #79
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…

A lot of these "this is not very different from X, you could do Y" replies remind me of the original Dropbox news.yc thread. What everyone seems to be missing is that the web3 apps and UI conventions already have broad adoption among millions of only mildly techy users. They don't know what SSH is but they do know how to sign things with their in-browser wallet app. Of course, they also seem to not always know that g…

> But any "solution" that requires e.g. using the terminal is not really competing in the same space.

The UI required for that is something that can be done in a couple minutes. The heavy lifting is done by libraries provided with the OS.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#98

Post by svachalek »

JesseObrien wrote: post #60

This article doesn't add up the points to anything that solves for the given problem. Owning identity isn't solved by saying "don't trust ${third party}! Come trust ${my preferred third party}, it's better!" Any blockchain is still a third party that all parties involved with need to place trust in. It isn't somehow more or less trustworthy just because it exists. > Many people, including myself, believe that the ind…

A properly decentralized blockchain isn't a third party in the traditional sense, a human or organization that is bound to follow its agreements until it doesn't feel like it anymore. It's an algorithm incarnated.

That said, its initial and continued existence is dependent on economics. Who will market a service that they don't stand to profit from? Who will drive large organizations to invest in infrastructure that doesn't improve their profits? Either no one will, or it will be adulterated in the process. Sadly the community spirit that drove a lot of early internet development seems to be lost.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#99

Post by dmitriid »

Article: web3 solves decentralized auth, and you are now in control!

Also article: to use it, you need to trust a centralized entity like Metamask that develops your Chrome extension and some unknown programmers that code some "smart contracts" aka unverifiable code in esoteric programming languages.

Also article: look! a solution! it's better!

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#100

Post by endisneigh »

thebean11 wrote: post #96
endisneigh wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re saying is also true with web3. A bad actor’s key could be banned and a list of bad actors could be shared among sites resulting in the same thing. In fact, if you believe in privacy at all you’d want to reject this idea for that alone.

Sure, multiple independent sites could individually ban you. That's a fundamentally different problem, and much much less likely. An antidote to that would be using a different key on each site you authenticate to. You still only need to store a single key, all other keys are derived from that yet cannot be associated with their sibling keys. > What you’re saying is also trust with web3. Not quite sure what you mean…

I’m not sure what your point is here - you could also create a new Google account per website or simply use an email address.

The author advocates using third party services such as meta mask, who would need to be trusted.

How do you implement it without any third party site.

If we are talking about likelihood it’s unlike you’d be banned from Microsoft/Facebook/Google for no reason too.

Furthermore as the administrator how you stop bad actors?

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