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Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

eng.paxos.com

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Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#141

Post by notzorbo3 »

sigstoat wrote: post #89
notzorbo3 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn't explain why a public distributed ledger such as the blockchain would make sense. A privately run ledger would probably also solve their problems, be cheaper and it would be a lot more secure against tampering.

which of the mutually untrustworthy parties will operate the ledger? customs agents don't trust shipping companies, shipping companies don't trust their customers, shipping companies might trust most customs agents in western countries but they operate everywhere, and there are, as i understand it, a number of other middle-men involved in the process, who probably aren't trusted much either. i don't see how a private…

It's fairly easy to provide cryptographic signing on records. You don't need the fullblown blockchain technology for that. Not trusting other partners isn't something that was suddenly invented when the blockchain was invented. Untrustworthiness has been around as long as humanity has been. We've solved these problems a long long time ago.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#142

Post by darawk »

dboreham wrote: post #92
darawk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrencies aren't going away. Which means that if your primary motivation to not work on cryptocurrency is that it wastes energy, then there's a whole lot of room for you to be making it better, and that is a stupid motivation. I'm not saying that they are obligated to work on it because it wastes energy. But the comment I was responding to implied that distributed systems engineers didn't want to work on block…

But the entire point is that it wastes energy. That's why it works. It isn't like a car that can be made more efficient and therefore better. The central premise is that we're going to waste energy to do something that can be done in other ways without wasting energy.

The entire point is that it wastes something. Not specifically energy. The idea is that there is a sunk, unrecoverable cost associated with mining. That cost may be able to take other forms, though. In the case of proof-of-stake, that cost is the time-value of money.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#143

Post by gwbas1c »

Rmilb wrote: post #91
Rjevski wrote: post #48

Because I have yet to find an actual legitimate use-case for a blockchain. Every task in our modern business world actually requires a central trusted authority. Edit: not to mention that mining is an incredible waste of time and energy that can instead be put to good use.

Good use is subjective, plenty of people are using the blockchain as a speculative asset and willing to pay transaction fees for it.

It's a great way to hide a pump-and-dump scheme. Although blockchain is a legitimate undertaking, if you're good at surfing hype, you'll know when to get in, get out at a profit, and then leave all the other suckers holding worthless bitcoin.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#145

Post by darawk »

EnFinlay wrote: post #51
darawk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are solutions to that though, like Proof of Stake. If distributed systems really cared about that, then that's exactly why they ought to be working on blockchains, to make them more efficient.

Just because people care about efficiency doesn't mean they ought to work on something that lacks it.

I think that's exactly what it means. If you want to help the environment right now, what field should you be in? Energy generation, storage, or consumption.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#146

Post by bradleyjg »

tyingq wrote: post #107
notzorbo3 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, a substantial amount of money was accidentally wired to my bank account. After about a month, I got a letter from the bank if I agreed on that money being wired back to the sender. I agreed, because I knew the implications. With a technology like bitcoin, where receivers are pseudononymous, that would have never been possible. Noone except for those who wish to remain pseudononymous will ever use bit…

I wonder if there's such a thing as Bitcoin address typosquatting. Especially targeting single bit typos (of busy wallets) to catch single bit errors. I guess, though, vanity wallet addresses are hard to create. Or maybe there's also a checksum that keeps this from working anyway.

There's a checksum, so your desired typosquatting address may not even be a valid address to begin with (the chance that it is valid is only 1 in 2^32). Even if it is a valid address it would be very very difficult to generate it. The difficulty of doing so would be at least as difficult as preimage attacks on both SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#148

Post by tyingq »

bradleyjg wrote: post #146
tyingq wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's such a thing as Bitcoin address typosquatting. Especially targeting single bit typos (of busy wallets) to catch single bit errors. I guess, though, vanity wallet addresses are hard to create. Or maybe there's also a checksum that keeps this from working anyway.

There's a checksum, so your desired typosquatting address may not even be a valid address to begin with (the chance that it is valid is only 1 in 2^32). Even if it is a valid address it would be very very difficult to generate it. The difficulty of doing so would be at least as difficult as preimage attacks on both SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160.

Interesting thanks. Is it remotely plausible on any other cryptocoin?

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#149

Post by patmcguire »

indigochill wrote: post #94
billmalarky wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ethereum team is serious about proof of stake.

Ethereum has not shown a particularly strong track record when it comes to security, so I think the comment stands until they address that or get replaced by the next hotness.

I believe it's not core Ethereum that has issues, it's buggy smart contracts. They don't make it particularly difficult to write insecure contracts, though.

Re: Why aren’t distributed systems engineers working on blockchain technology?

#150

Post by jethro_tell »

darawk wrote: post #131
jethro_tell wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's not illogical, Why would I work to bend something like block chain, that was designed to be inefficent, to my will when I can just start from scratch using projects that were designed to be efficient first? That's very logical, the kind of decision that an engineer that's getting paid the make the best distributed system for the least money would make.

It's not designed to be inefficient. It's designed to solve the distributed consensus problem in an adversarial environment. There are other now proposed mechanisms of doing that (e.g. PoS) that are quite efficient. Working on those would be extremely beneficial to the cause of environmental efficiency.

Evironmental efficiently solving a problem I don't have is still inefficient. I still can't think of a mojor user for proof of work in a destributed system. I have trouble thinking of a distributed system that someone would pay for to not be centrally trusted, usually by the benefactor of employment? We always hear what a great solution blockchain is. Even if that's true, I never hear the actual problem it solves. Sure, say distributed ledger, and proof of work but those are solutions of sorts.

Name a problem that would best be solved with blockchain.

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