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AWS and Blockchain

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Re: AWS and Blockchain

#301

Post by gatewaynode »

dsco wrote: post #277
TimJRobinson wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, but working with DeFi on Ethereum for a while I've realized the killer feature is actually permissionless composability. Which is why enterprise block chains make little sense. Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing. We've never had this before, and it's incredible how fast the…

See this is where HN has fallen off a cliff, the top commented Runeks supplies a highly theoretical and nonchalant answer to what blockchains _can_ be. That’s been the majority of HNs take on the technology. But the Internet was made for text communication and here we are decades later with social media and streaming video. TimJRobinson at least states something which is rare on HN, a take on blockchain technology wi…

This. It's not like all innovation that has occurred in the crypto-currency space is useless, there are some real valuable innovations there. Blockchain as a whole is just too tainted to see the forest for the trees in all the greed, specifically the word "blockchain" has become magical and deceptive.

"Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing."

Tim is dead on with this observation, this is amazing. And it's not a magic bullet statement either.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#302

Post by simiones »

nathias wrote: post #287
paulgb wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If “right tool for the job” is too hand-wavey, maybe “optimal tool given the problem constraints” is a better phrase. E.g. I’ve seen proposals for “credentials on the blockchain”, but if you assume that a credential issuer has a known public key (as these proposals do), the issuer can just sign a credential, no public ledger is needed. The complexity of using a blockchain for this is just waste.

sure, but the problem contraints arent reducible to engineering, so in the example you're giving an established centralized authority can profit from selling credentials using only a key signature, but a new decentralized bottom-up credential system needs a blockchain and smart-contracts to do it ...

The problem is that most such schemes end up requiring both a blockchain and an established centralized authority, because the blockchain doesn't actually solve the problem its meant to solve (since the only problem it solves is distributed consensus on the order of events in the blockchain - no more, no less).

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#303

Post by underdeserver »

> [Andy Jassey] said something like this: “All these leaders [CIOs and CTOs of huge enterprises] are asking me what our blockchain strategy is. They tell me that everyone’s saying it’s the future, the platform that’s going to obsolete everything else. I need to have a good answer for them. I’ll be honest, when they explain why it’s wonderful I just don’t get it. You guys got to go figure it out for us.”

To me the tell is not just that Andy didn't understand.

It's that all of these leaders said "everyone says it's the future", but not one of them said "I have this problem and here's how blockchain solves it for me."

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#304

Post by tokamak-teapot »

mnd999 wrote: post #147
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchains are great for one-thing... guarantee that data is being appended and never modified. When you want to display a record, you can aggregate the data historically and allow people to see changes and attribute them to users and time but you can always see what was originally added. However that's kinda risky for HR because anything committed to that DB will be there... forever!

That’s an event sourcing architecture, and something like Kafka will do it much better than a blockchain. The forever problem can be, ironically, resolved with crypto. If you encrypt each employer record with an employee key then, if the employee data needs to be deleted you just delete the key and the data is gone.

How about for sharing data between semi-co-operating companies?

One problem with sharing data between multiple parties is that you need somewhere central to store it, somewhere that's ultimately trusted. If you decide to trust one party, they could still make mistakes, have downtime, stop supporting the project that requires the shared data, or go rogue.

I'm perhaps too ignorant of blockchain, but could it help with this scenario? Does it give a better promise of availability and more trust in its consistency and integrity?

edit: I'm thinking here of a blockchain whose only users are this group of companies, not a public system. I don't know if a blockchain becomes useless when it is only used by a small group.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#305

Post by tootie »

dangero wrote: post #70
tootie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pornhub was cut off for failing to police child pornography. Why would you want to participate in a financial system that was incapable of excluding evildoers?

why would you want to participate in an internet that is incapable of excluding evildoers?

The pipes of the internet are essentially a public utility. Anyone operating above the level of an ISP should be able to police their usage.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#306

Post by [deleted] »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #268
runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

I used to think this, but working with DeFi on Ethereum for a while I've realized the killer feature is actually permissionless composability. Which is why enterprise block chains make little sense. Having one neutral platform, controlled by no one, with standardized API's and immutable open programs that anyone can permissionlessly build on - is amazing. We've never had this before, and it's incredible how fast the…

[deleted]

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#307

Post by CPLX »

danbruc wrote: post #258
runeks wrote: post #167

Blockchain was invented to solve one particular problem: distributed consensus on a sequence of transactions, where the choice of which transaction to include from a set of conflicting transactions is irrelevant. The latter property here is key to understanding where blockchain is useful. It was created to solve the "double spend problem", ie. two transitions that spend the same coin but send it to different recipien…

No, that its not the problem that bitcoin solves. You can do distributed consensus just fine without a block chain - if you have to make a choice between two options, everyone broadcasts a vote for one of the options and the option with the most votes is the accepted option. The problem that bitcoin solves is that you can not prevent me from casting a million votes because the system is anonymous - or pseudonymous if…

Compared to paper ballots it makes casting a ballot cheaper, more opaque, and less accountable.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#308

Post by pavlov »

The events described here took place in 2016, over six years ago. That's a long time in technology!

Since then additional billions of investment dollars have flowed into the space (a "VC crypto spasm" as the author calls it). Yet zero meaningful products have emerged. But we've witnessed many giant scams and endless crypto startups that happily spun their wheels producing nothing, just minting tokens so that insiders and investors can dump them onto retail investors.

How long will this have to go on? There are real things to build in software. This nonsense is both an embarrassment to the profession as well as a giant distraction. Time spent thinking about cryptocurrency mindgames is time you'll never get back to use on something productive.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#309

Post by bloopernova »

mike_hearn wrote: post #237
dale_glass wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but even that is potentially troublesome. If you're in a low trust environment, then probably nobody trusts the labs either. Like, why do the labs exist? Because the building companies really, really wants to build a solid building but the concrete industry is oddly shady? Or because there's an official/unofficial requirement for it? If the second, you easily end up with labs that rubber stamp whatever you want…

There's not really such a thing as low trust/high trust society. That's an abstraction that sounds good but hides too much detail to be useful when discussing specific projects. You can't just encourage everyone to trust everyone else. To the extent developed countries can be described as "high trust", it's not because they are just magically more trusting. They get that way because there are extensive and mostly wor…

This comment helped me to put into words something I've been thinking about recently.

Propaganda that erodes the concept of truth in a society also destroys trust. While a dictator may benefit in the short term from confused opposition, their erosion of truth deeply damages the society on which their power depends.

That being said, I don't know how long a truth-optional trust-destroyed society can last. For instance North Korea, but I know nothing about how much corruption exists there.

(Apologies for being off topic)

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#310

Post by tiffanyh »

Off topic: isn’t Amazon know for forcing people to be better writers due to how they conduct meetings with written memos.

I bring this up because that post could have been 1/2 the length, if not shorter, without losing any content or messaging.

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