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Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

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Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#231

Post by ChristopherDrum »

I sincerely don't follow the logic on how Web3 "solves" the problem posited in the "But what if someone loses their private key?" section:

"Some of you might already be familiar with multisig, which is a similar concept... 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. ... 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. If you ever lose access to your private key, there is a smart contract encoded on the blockchain that syas that if some number of your guardians all agree (you pick the number) then you can move your account to a new private key."

I didn't see anything about Google being a requirement for multisig, so I'll skip the author's aside and ask, "How are these two things different?" Multisig lets friends "vouch" for us to move our account to a new key and social recovery lets friends "agree" to let us move our account to a new key.

These sound exactly the same to me?

The original writeup says something about "multisig moves the burden down to the user to issue keys" etc., but setting up smart contracts would still require someone to do some kind of setup work. Those contracts aren't just going to magically appear out of nothing; at the very least you'll have to select your friends, get their agreement, and a contract would have to be issued and signed.

I dunno, I still fail to "get it" (this is not an invitation to try and help me "get it", as helping people "get it" is kind of the point of the original blog post)

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#232

Post by Sargos »

bko wrote: post #175
superfrank wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite these advantages, Persona failed. 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. And, on a technical level, a federated approach seems innumerably simpler and less wasteful than a blockchain-based approach. Sometimes it's all about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right a…

> That being said, if (major if) auth through web3 did take off, I wouldn't be surprised if over time it slowly creeped back toward a solution that doesn't use blockchain since a non-blockchain solution would probably be simpler, cheaper, and faster. I don't think you necessarily need blockchain. Can't you just prove that you are who you say by signing something and sending it to the service? You can just use the pro…

> I don't think you necessarily need blockchain. Can't you just prove that you are who you say by signing something and sending it to the service?

It's important to remember that blockchains are just public-key cryptography where you have a private key that can sign things and, importantly, everyone knows everyone else's verified public keys. That's it. It solves the key distribution and verification problem that PGP and TLS etc have and this enables a lot of use cases such as universal private communication channels and authentication.

Signing the message is key for this yes but knowing that a certain key is connected to a specific user and that user having the ability to use it to sign verified messages everyone in the world can trust is the real utility here and what makes this universal SSO system work well.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#233

Post by rthomas6 »

carlosdp wrote: post #126
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 joined the team at Mozilla that developed Persona as an intern, just as they closed it down. Persona failed because it was fighting against a head-wind of an already established trend of using Google/FB OAuth2, without giving the service provider any new benefits. There was no incentive for a website to actually implement Persona, since it was just another auth provider and users weren't using it. Users didn't use…

> built-in, straightforward payment rails.

Yeah. Crappy ones with high latency and high fees.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#234

Post by FranksTV »

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.

The major problem with crypto-bros is that they think "money" is a good enough answer. Money is an extrinsic motivator, and extrinsic motivators extinguish intrinsic motivation.

Money will never be a good enough reason to do things. Especially not the infinitesimal fractions of garbage coins that web3 will pay.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#235

Post by not2b »

I don't see any advantage in the proposed system over oauth-based solutions. Currently, you trust one of some set of big companies to verify your identity, but these big companies might misbehave. The web3 solutions mean that you trust that some blockchain-based approach will be programmed correctly and not have bugs that render it useless; requiring N different people to recover an account will impose unacceptable delays in emergencies.

Better to give one or more nonprofits the job, have them manage identities and do nothing else. No energy-sucking blockchain needed.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#237

Post by rgbrgb »

roca wrote: post #208
serverholic wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually used a web3 website? Once you have your wallet setup it's the most seamless login experience I've ever had. Also, I find it funny whenever someone says something like "web3 doesn't actually solve anything that hasn't been solved by other technologies like X". Then why isn't anyone using X? Why is nobody using Persona or Webauthn despite being "superior"?

I haven't used a Web3 site. How is it more seamless than Webauthn's "go to the site and have it verify my identity without me doing anything (using my plugged-in Yubikey plus the browser-stored user credentials)"? Persona failed for various reasons. Big companies didn't want to offer Persona logins because they wanted to control the user relationship, especially the barrier to getting an account, and were unwilling t…

Yeah, it's actually almost the exact same UX to what you described down to the hardware key and browser-extension only there are also a lot of fun hexadecimal numbers, network selectors, and it's tied to a real money wallet (this part could really make payments UX better so it's too bad the IRS classifies every purchase from the wallet as a securities trade).

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#239

Post by threeseed »

lmm wrote: post #225
candiddevmike wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described OAuth/OIDC.

OAuth helps but it still forces you to rely on a single central provider as your "root". So it's not a complete solution.

> still forces you to rely on a single central provider as your "root"

So what ? I am still struggling to understand what immediate and painful need users have with trusting Apple, Facebook, Google etc with their identity.

If people had some issue with this then users would simply not use OAuth and default to creating an account for each service they use.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#240

Post by Mezzie »

kristofferR wrote: post #158
erosenbe0 wrote: post #58

He isn't describing the true state of the world. Banks, brokerages, mortgage providers, and medical entities mostly don't use oauth2 and won't use this stuff either. The world is still old school. Grandpa dies and I go find the paper will. I get an affidavit from a lawyer and a death certificate with a seal from the state. I go into the bank with a bunch of papers and they figure out what to do. There isn't a chain o…

This is kind of funny to read, since in Norway basically every interaction with the government (paying taxes, filing for divorce, accessing our health records etc.) is done through an oauth2 system, the same one we use to log in to our bank accounts/get loans through. Most people haven't interacted with the government via paper in years. https://docs.digdir.no/idporten_overordnet.html https://www.altinn.no/hjelp/innl…

America's federalism would make this idea a mess here: Each state has their own system for everything and 50%+ of the lower-level governments/agencies (county or municipal level) don't have any digital footprint at all, even a website. For example, there are plenty of elections across the country whose official results can't be accessed online at all. You have to call in, go in person, or request mail/fax. There's basically a minimum of 50 different systems for even the most basic of government services (such as renewing a driver's license). And then you need to multiply that by all the different agencies and services. The federal government couldn't force one system for everything (there are certain things that are constitutionally up to the states), so it would be basically dead in the water since the problem is getting all 50 states (each with their own internal politics) to agree to implement the same system.

Not a problem web3 can solve either. Social Security Numbers aren't secure, but we keep using them everywhere because the political will to implement a better solution doesn't exist.

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