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But, aren't you folks web2?

nadh.in

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Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#171

Post by acdha »

web3isgoing wrote: post #169
teraflop wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! In that situation, revoking their ability to use the domain is a much better outcome for everybody except the scammer. > In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanism…

ENS avoids this dispute mechanism by design, to avoid the need for a central third party. > If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! Try applying your logic to Twitter and its current situation. Is it a good thing that accounts impersonating others are being suspended from the network? Mastodon does not have this same centralization, so @terafl…

Local namespaces are fine, even desirable since very few names are globally unique.

The problem with ENS is that it apes the federated DNS design without the oversight mechanisms. In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance and the operators can handle things like lost credentials or an account compromise, and if a particular host is not a good custodian many people will block the entirely. ENS has none of those corrective mechanisms and I suspect that they’ll slowly be added over time to get usage.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#172

Post by cameronh90 »

dmitriid wrote: post #80
cameronh90 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worth separating the technology of cryptocurrencies from the culture surrounding it. Blockchain technology was innovative and is interesting, but still early stage. I doubt that many of the early adopters of Bitcoin expected it to blow up in the way that it did, rather than just being a cyberpunk experiment that would potentially lead to some world-changing technology in the future. I would consider myse…

> Blockchain technology was innovative and is interesting, but still early stage. [1] - Cryptographer David Chaum first proposed a blockchain-like protocol in his 1982 dissertation - Further work on a cryptographically secured chain of blocks was described in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta - In 1992, Haber, Stornetta, and Dave Bayer incorporated Merkle trees into the design - The first decentralized bloc…

It's not particularly early in technology terms. It's very early in terms of society, finance and money, though.

It took us at least 3000 years to go from coins to fiat currency, and we still don't really know how it works. It took 50 years to go from physical money to mostly digital, and we're still not completely there. Contactless payments predated Bitcoin and they're still rolling out in the USA, despite being a very minor upgrade on the existing technology. Up until fairly recently, finance industries wouldn't even touch the cloud. I mean the USA only reached 50% internet penetration in 2000, and packet switching was invented all the way back in 1965, and was still considered a new technology by many in the mid 2000s.

Cryptocurrencies might completely fizzle out, or they might completely replace the modern finance industry. Personally, I think they'll die in their current form, but we'll take some of what we learnt to build new technologies. My view is that CBDCs have more potential than cryptocurrencies, but there's still a lot of cross-pollination going on between the two right now.

For what it's worth, I don't own any cryptocurrencies and haven't for years. Never touched NFTs and I'm still not really entirely sure what Web 3 is. I stopped paying much attention when the whole industry was overrun by bros and shysters. I just don't think it's wise to completely dismiss this branch of technology so readily. Certainly not in a global bear market when everyone is doubting everything and dumping their risky investments.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#173

Post by UncleEntity »

jeroenhd wrote: post #119
Communitivity wrote: post #96

Yes, there are a lot of scams in the crypto space. Yes, the terminology and hype make the SOA craze look like a toddler's tea. However, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of the underlying technologies are valid, valuable, and might just play into whatever is in the future of the networking. The technologies I am talking about are: * Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs) * Distributed Ledgers * Abstracted di…

Many of these are already in use. A PGP key is a decentralized identifier, for example, as is a self-signed certificate you load into your browser for TLS auth. WebAuthn and friends are the next step for those types of identifiers. Torrents and other file sharing systems have used DHTs and merkle trees before Bitcoin even existed. XMPP had decentralized and distributed communication. I'd argue that smart contracts ar…

> I'd argue that smart contracts are new, though they're not inherently linked to currencies necessarily. I don't know any practical use for them outside the cryptocurrency/NFT/blockchain speculation niche, but they're a cool invention.

I think the fuddy-duddy web2 folks call those lambda cloud functions or something like that.

Except in web3 land you pay per execution while the web2 peeps charge per, umm, execution?

Though they’re obviously different because the smart contracts can change the state of the blockchain while lambda functions can only modify their own database.

And a smart contract can act as an oracle to the outside world while lambdas are restricted to web2 APIs.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#174

Post by web3isgoing »

acdha wrote: post #170
web3isgoing wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand how DNS works. The design goals of ENS are not the same as DNS. There is no "trusted third party" in ENS because the system aims to be trustless, decentralized, ownerless, and censorship-resistant. Even in extreme scenarios like a US sanction, tornadocash.eth domain is still functioning[1] but tornadocash.com has been revoked by Google registrar[2]. Not everybody in the world feels that the current US go…

I’m aware that it’s a thought experiment but it’s weird to have that combined with unhappiness that few people are using a system which is designed to prevent real world problems from being solved. I’d also lay off the marketing-speak and think about what tangible benefits ENS provides in your example: yes, tornadocash.eth resolves but most people cannot use the service safely and even your link shows the content as…

The real world problems are still being solved, just off-chain. I made a similar example with Mastodon: no central entity controls Mastodon, so x@x.com and x@x.xyz might be owned by different people, one impersonating another, and you can't just "complain to Mastodon" to fix it.

Tornado cash: the domain is still resolvable to an IPFS hosted website[1]. As far as ENS is concerned as a name service and URI resolving mechanism, it is working great. This doesn't mean the smart contract that facilitates tornado cash deposits is working that well: if the US says you will be criminalized for touching a smart contract, then nobody will want to touch it, and tornado cash depends on many people using it to provide anonymity.

> If you were actually concerned about censorship, an expensive service which leaves a public audit trail for prosecutors would not be the optimal starting point.

If you are referring to tornado cash, I think you are mistaken.

[1] https://twitter.com/liamzebedee/status/1578127982173908992

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#175

Post by web3isgoing »

acdha wrote: post #171
web3isgoing wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ENS avoids this dispute mechanism by design, to avoid the need for a central third party. > If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! Try applying your logic to Twitter and its current situation. Is it a good thing that accounts impersonating others are being suspended from the network? Mastodon does not have this same centralization, so @terafl…

Local namespaces are fine, even desirable since very few names are globally unique. The problem with ENS is that it apes the federated DNS design without the oversight mechanisms. In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance and the operators can handle things like lost credentials or an account compromise, and if a particular host is not a good custodian many people wil…

I could be wrong, but I do not believe ActivityPub spec actively outlines suspension rules, instead letting servers decide how to moderate their content. Same with clients on top of ENS and the blockchain.

These moderations already exist on services built on top of ENS, like tornadocash.eth.limo which fails to resolve because the .limo domain is following US sanctions.

> In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance

Just to point out, the impersonator can self-host, so Mastodon protocol has no course to expel them except for each other instance to suspend the impersonator one at a time, or to come to consensus on large blocklists.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#176

Post by pbronez »

caseyf wrote: post #124
mjburgess wrote: post #4

For the first time my anger over crypto moves into genuine concern. Is an entire generation of young people experiencing a kind of "pokemonisation" of crypto well into early adulthood? In other words, is a generation of 20-somethings wasting the better part of that decade on this tech, in these scams? If so, this feels new (?). We're not talking about the chain-letter crazes of the 20s/30s, the housewife pyramid sche…

> For the first time my anger over crypto moves into genuine concern. Is an entire generation of young people experiencing a kind of "pokemonisation" of crypto well into early adulthood? In other words, is a generation of 20-somethings wasting the better part of that decade on this tech, in these scams? I'm a middle aged developer who spent pandemic time in "web3" (ugh) dev discords and stuff. There are scammers, sur…

Personally, I think the Fediverse and IndieWeb are in a much stronger position. Key thing to watch: does Mastodon manage to ride the wave created by the Twitter collapse and become a socially relevant force? Even in some small communities?

I'm much more bullish on small communities talking to each other with open source software (Fediverse) than magical crypto schemes that require deep economic expertise to design properly (which nobody on the project ever has).

I do think Podcasting 2.0 is a neat idea. There's room in this world for micropayments. I just don't want it to be pervasive and I'm exhausted from the stream of scams.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#177

Post by acdha »

web3isgoing wrote: post #174
acdha wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m aware that it’s a thought experiment but it’s weird to have that combined with unhappiness that few people are using a system which is designed to prevent real world problems from being solved. I’d also lay off the marketing-speak and think about what tangible benefits ENS provides in your example: yes, tornadocash.eth resolves but most people cannot use the service safely and even your link shows the content as…

The real world problems are still being solved, just off-chain. I made a similar example with Mastodon: no central entity controls Mastodon, so x@x.com and x@x.xyz might be owned by different people, one impersonating another, and you can't just "complain to Mastodon" to fix it. Tornado cash: the domain is still resolvable to an IPFS hosted website[1]. As far as ENS is concerned as a name service and URI resolving me…

> The real world problems are still being solved, just off-chain.

This is incorrect and the example shows why:

> I made a similar example with Mastodon: no central entity controls Mastodon, so x@x.com and x@x.xyz might be owned by different people, one impersonating another, and you can't just "complain to Mastodon" to fix it.

In this case, it might not be a problem — many people share the same names and a decentralized system supports that in a way which a centralized system like ENS does not. If it is a problem, you can complain to the operator of that particular instance and if it's an actual crime their domain registrar or hosting company, etc. If you lose your credentials or someone steals them, you can use the same mechanism to correct it.

In the case of ENS, you not only do not have any of those mechanisms but the system is designed to prevent them. If you lose control of your keys, you lose your name for ever. If someone squats on your name, there's no third-party to turn to short of filing a lawsuit and hoping that the person complies with the eventual outcome.

Re: Tornado cash, that's kind of the point – the smart contract is risky for people in multiple large economies to touch, and IPFS is no more resistant to take-down notices than any other distributed hosting option since it's built on top of the normal internet and governments have plenty of experience contacting network owners. Having the name up gives you something more reputable looking than using a DNS TLD under a different legal authority but it's not meaningfully making the system more available.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#178

Post by chrisco255 »

mjburgess wrote: post #68
chrisco255 wrote: post #39

"In the web3 crypto world, big venture capital is the biggest champion of decentralisation, self-sovereignty, free speech, and anti-BigTech efforts?" This is a function of a hostile SEC and regulatory regime to the concept of decentralized fundraising. Everyone is afraid of being labeled a security. Most recently, LBRY, a decentralized YouTube-like startup that seemed to have their heart in the right place and built…

"Web 2" provides tools for "user and community sovereignty", indeed that was "web0". (Which also, by analogy repeats the 'adaptive front-end' trend whereby web2 had to reinvent scaling pages to fit screens that was already native to web0). The trend of returning to "web0" has always been present, and likely always will be. It doesnt require new technology. It requires people to want to pay the implicit transaction an…

Blockchain is one technology that has a myriad of use cases. One of the critical ones is value transfer infrastructure. You cannot "decentralize the web" if you cannot monetize it in a non-censorable way. Otherwise you get situations like Paypal, which recently added a $2500 threat to its TOS that if you speak incorrectly, they will fine your account. Or the Canadian trucker protest earlier this year, where their bank accounts were frozen because tyrants run the world right now. You cannot have real freedom without the ability to transact freely.

You also cannot fund decentralized infrastructure, like data storage nodes, without creating decentralized, permissionless incentives to run and operate file storage hardware. That's where token incentives come in. It's not rent seeking, it's effective

Tell me how you would effectively archive censor-resistant data without blockchain? How could you guarantee that a file was stored and available for many years and do so such that no central party could arbitrarily take the content down?

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#179

Post by UncleEntity »

chrisco255 wrote: post #39

"In the web3 crypto world, big venture capital is the biggest champion of decentralisation, self-sovereignty, free speech, and anti-BigTech efforts?" This is a function of a hostile SEC and regulatory regime to the concept of decentralized fundraising. Everyone is afraid of being labeled a security. Most recently, LBRY, a decentralized YouTube-like startup that seemed to have their heart in the right place and built…

> I think the wealth based requirement for fundraising is ludicrous and it deprives retail investors of potential life changing returns.

Unfortunately, they are more likely to suffer life changing losses.

I’m no fan of big government but a simple analysis shows that these requirements are in place specifically to protect people from the kinds of shenanigans that are rampant in the cryptocurrency sphere.

It’s almost like these sorts of things happen so often to basically financially illiterate people that the government finally stepped in and did something about it. Probably be better to teach financial literacy but that’s a bridge too far, the politicians wouldn’t be able get away with half the stuff they do.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#180

Post by web3isgoing »

acdha wrote: post #177
web3isgoing wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real world problems are still being solved, just off-chain. I made a similar example with Mastodon: no central entity controls Mastodon, so x@x.com and x@x.xyz might be owned by different people, one impersonating another, and you can't just "complain to Mastodon" to fix it. Tornado cash: the domain is still resolvable to an IPFS hosted website[1]. As far as ENS is concerned as a name service and URI resolving me…

> The real world problems are still being solved, just off-chain. This is incorrect and the example shows why: > I made a similar example with Mastodon: no central entity controls Mastodon, so x@x.com and x@x.xyz might be owned by different people, one impersonating another, and you can't just "complain to Mastodon" to fix it. In this case, it might not be a problem — many people share the same names and a decentrali…

The fact that I can still access tornado cash website through IPFS and dAppnet does imply it is more accessible and censorship resistant. We are talking about ENS pointing to an IPFS website here, not the smart contract addresses that the ENS points to.

In mastodon, if the impersonator is self hosting the impersonating domain, your only solution is to complain to the registrar or try to get support from other instances to block the domain. The same mechanisms of getting clients and servers to block requests happening in the censor resistant protocol does happen in ens and crypto based systems, if criminal behavior is involved or heavy moderation is wanted.

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