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My First Impressions of Web3

moxie.org

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Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#751

Post by fy20 »

Joeri wrote: post #703
simias wrote: post #29

>When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much “better” in the immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone. It would be faster, cheaper for everyone, and easier to use. That sums up the situation for me. Having a marketplace for purely digital goods might be a concept with a future. Having standard ways to interoperate between different platforms and query and update these goods might make sense (althou…

The problem with traditional authority models is that the authority may disappear or be subverted. In regions with unstable governments you cannot rely on the government to keep saying that your house is your house. This is why I think the really valuable and underserved use case of the blockchain is decentralized identity. You can prove you are who you say, you’ve studied where you claim, you’ve worked at the places…

> In regions with unstable governments you cannot rely on the government to keep saying that your house is your house.

You can say it's your house all you want, but if the new regime sends soldiers to evict you, no amount of evidence that it belongs to you is going to help you.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#752

Post by tsimionescu »

dsanchez97 wrote: post #192
simias wrote: post #29

>When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much “better” in the immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone. It would be faster, cheaper for everyone, and easier to use. That sums up the situation for me. Having a marketplace for purely digital goods might be a concept with a future. Having standard ways to interoperate between different platforms and query and update these goods might make sense (althou…

I definitely agree that most people/projects/etc gloss over that fact that there still needs be a 'start of authority' to be trusted with NFTS. I think a major upside of doing the digital transactions on a Blockchain (as opposed to the system you described) is that the start authority does not need to be present or keep track of any future transactions. In your Rolex example, I believe that there would be no way of p…

> In your Rolex example, I believe that there would be no way of person A selling their Rolex (and digital rights of the Rolex) without notifying Rolex and Rolex having to keep track of transaction.

What does "digital rights of the Rolex" mean? Also, why is it harder to notify Rolex of this transaction than it is to notify some blockchain?

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#753

Post by shrimpx »

jiggawatts wrote: post #677

The author mentions that currently all NFTs are just URLs, but it is possible to store data directly in the blockchain, even if it would be prohibitively expensive. An issue with general-purpose immutable storage is that it can be permanently polluted with illegal data. Everything from child pornography, instructions for making drugs or explosives, doxing/attack information, private keys for copy protection systems,…

I wonder how this works out from a legal perspective. It seems like an NFT is a contract, that never expires, to host content at a URL. Can a buyer sue the seller if the seller shuts down the serving of that image? Otherwise an NFT is just a signed URL string.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#754

Post by pkcsecurity »

Moxie makes so many good critiques (some are so subtle, it might be worth a second read). I got the sense he’s trying very hard to be even handed and constructive about a situation he feels pretty badly about, but his true feelings are bleeding through in some of the side points / parentheticals.

One point that I disagree with is his almost axiomatic premise that decentralization is an inherent good and the implication that the Internet went wrong because it failed to stay decentralized. To hint at great cryptography as the solution, as he does im his conclusion, is baked deep in his bones as an amazing cryptographer, but I think he’s prescribing the wrong cure. The problems with the Internet are fundamentally not about decentralization - they’re about trust. It’s a people problem, not a technology problem. Because of this, cryptography (I do not mean crypto) simply cannot be the answer - even the best cryptography is, like a great legal system, only capable of dramatically reducing the overhead costs and risk of operating in a given environment. When it comes to what great cryptography can achieve, I think HTTPS and maybe some E2E stuff that’s happening with Signal is as good as it can get (interestingly, HTTPS is good in large part thanks to Moxie) - it cannot bring us back to some golden Internet age.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#755

Post by hk__2 »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #348
not2b wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, many NFTs are implemented by storing a URL in the blockchain; the digital artwork sits on some server and is reachable by that link. Fine, you can prove that you own the URL. But what that URL points to can change out from under you, so there's no way to make that trustless. If you own the domain and the server that it points to, the registrar can take the domain away from you and give it t…

This is trivially solved by including a hash of the object in the ownership certificate.

> This is trivially solved by including a hash of the object in the ownership certificate.

This doesn’t fix any issue. If the URL changes, your NFT is worth nothing and you have no way to get the object back.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#756

Post by Lucadg »

Great article.

About NFTs: we tend to think they somehow need an image to make sense, while the "own the NFT to own the image" is both wrong and just one specific use case out of many. I find it useful to think about NFTs as "internet native property titles" which do not embed "law enforcement".

See it this way: if you own a house, you own a property title which proves it. In case someone squats your house and the law enforcement does not help you get it back (e.g. due to corruption or slow legal system), it's just a useless piece of paper.

Same with NFTs. Some use cases have enforcement embedded (e.g. ENS domains) and bear no risk, some don't (OpenSea minted image NFTs) and carry some risk from centralized entities (the same risk we have in 100% of Web2 applications btw)

Enforcement often happens at the app layer, even if the NFT image can be compromised. E.g. an NFT which gives you access to a walled web page will still work even if the image is compromised.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#757

Post by shrimpx »

ThreeToZero wrote: post #708
jiggawatts wrote: post #677

The author mentions that currently all NFTs are just URLs, but it is possible to store data directly in the blockchain, even if it would be prohibitively expensive. An issue with general-purpose immutable storage is that it can be permanently polluted with illegal data. Everything from child pornography, instructions for making drugs or explosives, doxing/attack information, private keys for copy protection systems,…

Bitcoin is 'vulnerable' to this. The most common use is to put financial transactions on Bitcoin, but you can put whatever binary data you want. Famously the genesis block[1] includes a newspaper headline to prove it was created after a specific day. It's possible to place illegal content onto the Bitcoin blockchain. [1] - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

> It's possible to place illegal content onto the Bitcoin blockchain.

I wonder if Bitcoin already has illegal content in it.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#758

Post by tsimionescu »

nefitty wrote: post #121
pshc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Couldn't Rolex issue a PGP signed CSV of all valid Rolex serial numbers once a month on IPFS and you'd get the exact same security and trust profile without having to involve any "web3" feature? A serial number can be copied and engraved onto a forged watch, so not really. A more analogous scenario would be if Rolex embedded an NFC hardware chip with a private key inside the watch, such that anyone could wave their…

This is one of the few usecases of crypto that kinda make sense. If those certs were on a blockchain, Rolex could fold and people in the future might still be able to check for authenticity. There's more steps involved that I'm not sure could be solved, like, who controls the authenticity Oracle? Is it an API that gets pinged? Do you have to pay a gas or network fee to check authenticity? Could a smart contract be ma…

> Rolex could fold and people in the future might still be able to check for authenticity.

Well, what if Rolex folds and sells their private keys, and an unscrupulous buyer then starts minting Rolex NFTs for fake watches? What if this happens surreptitiously, and not out in the open?

Further, it's far more likely at the moment that Rolex will exist 50 years from now than that Ethereum or Bitcoin will.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#759

Post by lordofmoria »

pkcsecurity wrote: post #754

Moxie makes so many good critiques (some are so subtle, it might be worth a second read). I got the sense he’s trying very hard to be even handed and constructive about a situation he feels pretty badly about, but his true feelings are bleeding through in some of the side points / parentheticals. One point that I disagree with is his almost axiomatic premise that decentralization is an inherent good and the implicati…

This is insightful, but a bit depressing. How do you propose solving these problems if cryptography is not the answer? At least Moxie is suggesting that there is a viable path forward by focusing on solutions that decentralize the infrastructure.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#760

Post by tsimionescu »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #498
simias wrote: post #29

>When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much “better” in the immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone. It would be faster, cheaper for everyone, and easier to use. That sums up the situation for me. Having a marketplace for purely digital goods might be a concept with a future. Having standard ways to interoperate between different platforms and query and update these goods might make sense (althou…

>>Rolex issue a PGP signed CSV of all valid Rolex serial numbers once a month on IPFS and you'd get the exact same security and trust profile without having to involve any "web3" feature? This doesn't enable real-time transfers of NFTs. Ideally, the blockchain allows the NFTs to be traded without Rolex relying on another company acting as a trusted third party platform keeping track of ownership, or Rolex itself runn…

The NFTs are useless. The watches - the thing people care about - can still be traded without relying on Rolex or any other company.
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