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Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

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Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#131

Post by iskander »

rbanffy wrote: post #97
iskander wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And Dropbox was trivially just rsync...

Yet, crypto wallets remain the only cryptographic signature UI that normal people interact with.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#132

Post by lamontcg »

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…

Yeah I think it is mostly businesses that think this is a huge problem to solve to have identities matched across everything seamlessly.

Mostly what I care about is logins and payments which are addressed by password managers and form filling for credit cards. I just want a friction free experience for setting up an account, logging back into it, and maybe purchasing something.

And ideally I'd like to self-host, maybe with a service that looked like a NAS appliance hanging off a guest network on my router with a forwarded port through the firewall and some method for tracking my IP address (dyndns or similarish).

And ideally payments happen by a handshake between the service I run, the processor and the merchant in a way that my actual credit card details are never used. And for recurring payments I have the ability to just switch them off. Bringing all the control back to me and not leaking out reusable PII everywhere.

Of course corporations would aggressively hate that since it would destroy their business models of recurring payments for services the user is no longer using and the requirement of calling up the business and having to convince some phone operator that you really want to cancel.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#133

Post by tchock23 »

djohnston wrote: post #77
DeepYogurt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we don't need unique identities across everything, but even if that is a real problem it is also solved by public key cryptography without a requirement of a blockchain.

Sure but the blockchain env like Ethereum gives you that for free along with a few slick chrome extensions like Metamask and a JS library (web3.js) that make all of this super easy to build on. You don't need to make any transactions or whatever, but you're inheriting all these tools for free.

The reviews on the metamask chrome extension are pretty scary. And it has access to view all data on all sites you visit. Is there a better way?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#134

Post by thebean11 »

endisneigh wrote: post #128
thebean11 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone made 2109@gmail.com 238@gmail.com 2398@gmail.com you could contact Google, send them the information and potentially block all of them collectively and/or find the person responsible. Citation needed, I very much doubt Google would comply without a search warrant. For financial activity, it depends whether the application requires authentication, or simply funds. For authentication see things like DECO,…

> Citation needed, I very much doubt Google would comply without a search warrant. For financial activity, it depends whether the application requires authentication, or simply funds. For authentication see things like DECO, where you could prove some personal information about yourself without actually revealing that information (SSN for example). Obviously that is piggy backing off of a legacy system; it's up to th…

> There's plenty of evidence out there for this

You are completely moving the goalposts, I thought we were talking about internet services trying to prevent spam..not government snooping and subpoenas. Are you claiming the government's ability to collect data about you from Google is a good thing? I'm pretty confused.

> Again, you're not answering the question. What does the web administrator do if someone is creating fake accounts using a private key? If you're going to use third party systems you don't need blockchain to begin with.

You are not answering the question either, is this web administrator the government? Are they going to serve Google with a subpoena?

> I'm not sayin everyone using metamask can host their own server, I'm saying someone who isn't using a centralized entity anywhere can do it, by definition.

Ok fair enough, I'm not saying anybody will be using "no centralized entity anywhere", not totally sure what your point is. Using a centralized entity for A is equivalent to using it for A+B?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#135

Post by spinny »

lottin wrote: post #82
spinny wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

have you ignored the "public data" part on my comment ??

why do you twist "owning your identity" to mean putting everything about you "somewhere public" (like a blockchain)

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#136

Post by mattlondon »

numtel wrote: post #111
rbanffy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Messages are signed by cryptographic signatures so nobody can claim to be you. This is how JWTs and many other protocols ensure message authenticity.

> nobody can claim to be you.

Nobody can claim to have your private key, but they can sure as hell claim to be you.

We won't know who the real numtel ever is without some real-world proof and verification. This is where a lot of this crypto-based stuff starts to crumble: sure the mathematics of the cryptography works well on chain, but there is a very limited set of things that exist 100% purely on the blockchain - as soon as you need to go off of the blockchain for anything (e.g. proving human identity, proving ownership of a physical asset like a house etc) then you're back to the same old problems we've always had of having to prove identity/ownership/whatever, and you cant use a cryptographic hash to prove that I own the apple I am eating right now ... perhaps you can prove that I own an apple, but can you prove I own this apple?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#137

Post by ilogik »

mattlondon wrote: post #125
gillesjacobs wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency ecosystems have the advantage of economic incentivization and if they're decentralised, uncensorability. Those are two major advantages.

> uncensorability I suspect that this will be a major issue in the long-run. Once these sort of crypto-based logins become synonymous with CP and terrorism, they're going to be shunned by the average person on the street. Yes yes yes, people use email and whatsapp for the same, but at least there is the option for Google and Facebook to censor or block/ban those users (and it feels like there is increasing legal/legi…

if I run an online service, and you login with web3, if you're an asshole, I can still ban your "indelible" account

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#138

Post by roca »

I'm open to the idea that there are real problems that are best solved by PoW/PoS blockchains and smart contracts, so I was hoping this article would reveal one. It doesn't. As mentioned elsewhere, Persona was already a perfectly good technical solution to this, years ago. It failed for various reasons, none of which would be addressed by blockchains/smart contracts. Likewise, the problem of "conveniently and securely log in everywhere" is well solved by Webauthn.

Arguing that "web3" will help because it will improve UX is ludicrous. "web3" provides nothing directly to boost UX. "web3 hype means there's lots of money sloshing around which can be used to improve UX" is an admission of defeat; all the money being sucked into the crypto space could be better deployed to solve these problems directly.

If this is the best shot at "real problems web3 solves", then there really is nothing there :-(.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#139

Post by endisneigh »

thebean11 wrote: post #134
endisneigh wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Citation needed, I very much doubt Google would comply without a search warrant. For financial activity, it depends whether the application requires authentication, or simply funds. For authentication see things like DECO, where you could prove some personal information about yourself without actually revealing that information (SSN for example). Obviously that is piggy backing off of a legacy system; it's up to th…

> There's plenty of evidence out there for this You are completely moving the goalposts, I thought we were talking about internet services trying to prevent spam..not government snooping and subpoenas. Are you claiming the government's ability to collect data about you from Google is a good thing? I'm pretty confused. > Again, you're not answering the question. What does the web administrator do if someone is creatin…

you don't really make any sense. sorry. I already addressed your points. the government point is not really relevant. the point is that a web admin has recourse with Google and/or government depending on the nature of the activity.

good luck

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#140

Post by gdsdfe »

unless you're running your own servers, you don't own nothing ... you still going to be tied to a 3rd party that does that for you. This is what the web3 crowd don't want to understand, they will keep telling you : big tech ruined the internet bla bla bla switch to us because we are decentralized and you own your own data, ok ... but if anyone wants to use it or access it they need to go through us
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