Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

billprin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 319 posts

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#191

Post by [deleted] »

nathias wrote: post #39
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…

federated systems are bad, they combine the negatives of centralized and decentralized systems it is no wonder that they fail repeatedly

[deleted]

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#192

Post by drusepth »

mark242 wrote: post #112
herlitzj wrote: post #17

I honestly thought this was going to be a joke post because that top image is ridiculous. Maybe I'm just old, but it reads to me as Web 1.0: Great Web 2.0: Ugh, ok Web 3.0: You're serious with this?

The image amplifies what we already know is a fundamental problem with OAuth; people, instead of forgetting their username/password combo, now are forgetting which provider they use to sign into a service. That "Web 3.0 login" portion of the slide only makes that problem worse. Decentralization and a variety of choices absolutely fall apart when they meet non-tech users who have no idea what icon means what.

>The image amplifies what we already know is a fundamental problem with OAuth; people, instead of forgetting their username/password combo, now are forgetting which provider they use to sign into a service.

I already have this problem with Matrix/Element all the time. Not only do I forget my username and/or password on networks I've been logged into for months, I also forget homeserver addresses and all these other settings I had to set up at some point. Every time I get logged out of something, it takes a day or two to figure out how to get back in.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#193

Post by tshaddox »

mattlondon wrote: post #89
betwixthewires wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For one thing, I don’t have to deal with every new website’s crappy signup and email confirmation flows, broken password reset flows, login forms that deliberately break password managers, etc. Obviously Web3 has nothing directly to do with these things, but a consistent auth system becoming ubiquitous could be inherently nice.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#194

Post by tshaddox »

endisneigh wrote: post #124
wan23 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email addresses aren't really good for this. It's really easy to sign up for a service with someone else's email address, for example. Sure, if that person ever finds out they can potentially claim ownership of the account through a password reset, but it doesn't erase the fact that you have been using their "identity" for some time.

> Email addresses aren't really good for this. It's really easy to sign up for a service with someone else's email address, for example. Sure, if that person ever finds out they can potentially claim ownership of the account through a password reset, but it doesn't erase the fact that you have been using their "identity" for some time. This is also true of a private key, in fact it's literally the same scenario...

Presumably a service that allows you to register using a public key as a unique identifier would require you to sign something with the private key.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#195

Post by vsareto »

>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.

>You can also do this to require approval from your friends before a certain amount of money moves out of your account, making theft significantly harder.

Okay, what if your relationship with those people changes? If you've lost your key or its destroyed (maybe as a result of those relationships changing before you've had a chance to do anything), presumably you can't remove the trust relationship with your former friends. You then can't withdraw unless your new enemies say so, and you can't change that trust relationship.

Plus what are the rules around removing the withdrawal limit? If I can just remove it at any time, how's that going to prevent theft, as I can just remove the limit before the theft?

This is now yet another security consideration for regular users. In addition to ensuring your key is backed up, you have to think about contingencies for if/when these trust relationships change.

But flip this feature on its head and give your bank this trust, and at least you have the same resiliency as your current bank account. Ironically, you likely want to trust a large entity with vast resources (presumably too big to fail) instead of friends and family if you're looking to be secure against loss of your private key.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#196

Post by GekkePrutser »

throwaway92873 wrote: post #47
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…

The Persona team approached the company I was working for, asking us to add Persona login alongside our other login options. Mozilla came to us because we had a huge web presence at the time (about the size of Wordpress, let's say). We discussed it internally and ultimately rejected their request. We were going through a re-org and just didn't have anyone to spare. We were also rewriting the component where the login…

Didn't Apple try it 2 years ago? Log in with Apple...

I would never use these services unless it was completely open, free and privacy centric though.

Apple comes a bit of the way but they tend to make stuff work only on their own hardware wish won't work for me. Persona would have been a good option. Especially because it could be self hosted. That would be amazing. It was just a bit too early.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#197

Post by GekkePrutser »

gillesjacobs wrote: post #115
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…

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

Yeah the economic incentive is the problem also. People just get into it for the money, not because they believe in it. This is the whole issue with crypto currency and web 3.0 too.

It's a bit sad because it never started out as something intended for "make money fast" kind of investors. Bitcoin started as a way to free users from the centralised banks and regulation.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#198

Post by GekkePrutser »

lamontcg wrote: post #132
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, mayb…

This sounds ideal. Especially the self hosted part.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#199

Post by acjohnson55 »

wan23 wrote: post #117
mattlondon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Email addresses aren't really good for this. It's really easy to sign up for a service with someone else's email address, for example. Sure, if that person ever finds out they can potentially claim ownership of the account through a password reset, but it doesn't erase the fact that you have been using their "identity" for some time.

That's what email confirmation is for. Let's you confirm possession of the email account you enrolled with.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#200

Post by cam0 »

thebean11 wrote: post #105
endisneigh wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 administrat…

You have to trust MetaMask to some extent, like any software you run locally, but MetaMask never gains control of your keys or identities, it's just a tool for using them (obviously 99.9% of users aren't auditing the code or building from source, but that's a totally different threat model). If MetaMask stops working for you, you can use a different tool with the same keys . If Google stops working for you you cannot…

Anecdotal but I've been using gmail for ~15 years and I've never heard of anyone (that I personally know) being banned by Google. Seems like a far-fetched scenario for the average person.
Post reply on HN