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

Cicada – Decentralized Application and Direct Democracy Platform

iamcicada.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: Cicada – Decentralized Application and Direct Democracy Platform

#12

Post by keymone »

jdormit wrote: post #6
Kinnard wrote: post #3

The first thing I notice is quite remarkable, this is a cryptocurrency inspired by a science fiction novel?? It all comes full circle with Cryptocurrency first being described in Cryptonomicon. Haven't had a chance to dig through all its claims.

> Cryptocurrency first being described in Cryptonomicon Really? That's crazy! I always thought that Stephenson had heard early ideas about cryptocurrencies and incorporated them into his book. Are you saying the Neil Stephenson invented the concept of a cryptocurrency?

iirc cryptocurrency was never described in cryptonomicon, internet-based gold-backed currency was.

Re: Cicada – Decentralized Application and Direct Democracy Platform

#14

Post by castle-bravo »

There's another novel relevant to this idea: Bruce Sterling's Distraction [1] describes groups of people ('Moderators' and 'Regulators') who live under alternative, network-moderated social contracts ('reputation servers'). In Sterling's book, these 'proles' live without money, but earn positive reputation for engaging in pro-social behaviour. They are not under the boot-heel of the state.

[1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218566.Distraction

Re: Cicada – Decentralized Application and Direct Democracy Platform

#16

Post by rboyd »

lend000 wrote: post #7

Not sure I see how this avoids an inevitable mining arms race (if it is indeed claiming to avoid such a thing). Even if miners are randomly drafted into random pools, the more miners you create, the more income. Seems like a very game-able system.

The paper linked on github mentions that people are limited to only run a single miner. I haven't parsed it all yet but I think they intend to use the biometrics/HUID to enforce this. Among other concerns, I'm not sure where this leaves folks with injured or missing retinas. Or what might stop people from selling vote or mining capacity by proxy.

Re: Cicada – Decentralized Application and Direct Democracy Platform

#17

Post by rboyd »

emrgx wrote: post #2

White paper: https://github.com/the-laughing-monkey/cicada-platform/blob/...

Looking at this it appears the github large avatar for the-laughing-monkey user doesn't match the thumbnail image. Maybe it was recently changed. The large version is an illustration, but the small version gets hits on TinEye for Dan Jeffries (the author of the book mentioned as inspiration).

A search for Dan Jeffries cicada turns up some related material. Seems strange that the link to the book on the iamcicada page doesn't explicitly spell out the author's relationship to the project.

Maybe somewhere along the way, he decided to go pseudonymous? I'm sure he's an HNer, maybe he'll weigh in.

FWIW, I like most of the ideas here.

Re: Cicada – Decentralized Application and Direct Democracy Platform

#19

Post by lend000 »

rboyd wrote: post #16
lend000 wrote: post #7

Not sure I see how this avoids an inevitable mining arms race (if it is indeed claiming to avoid such a thing). Even if miners are randomly drafted into random pools, the more miners you create, the more income. Seems like a very game-able system.

The paper linked on github mentions that people are limited to only run a single miner. I haven't parsed it all yet but I think they intend to use the biometrics/HUID to enforce this. Among other concerns, I'm not sure where this leaves folks with injured or missing retinas. Or what might stop people from selling vote or mining capacity by proxy.

Yeah, and of course anything biometric can be represented as data that can be stored on another machine/is NOT secure. Best case is behavioral challenge/response, but eventually even that will be cracked (probably just as soon as there's a working implementation).
Post reply on HN