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AWS and Blockchain

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Re: AWS and Blockchain

#681

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

halpmeh wrote: post #626
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You're the one with the "output is guaranteed to be correct" line. A smart contract is just code.

Yes, the output is guaranteed to be correct. Let’s say you give me a program and ask me to run it for you. Can you guarantee that I won’t tamper with the executable? No you can’t. You can’t trust the output of an arbitrary program you give me to run. The only way you could trust my result would be to run the program yourself and verify I provided you the correct output. If you run the program yourself, then what’s th…

If your point is that the EVM byte-code that's deployed to the blockchain is immutable and that transactions which don't agree with the results of executing code will be rejected, yes, that is a true statement.

I think what everyone is quibbling with is the assertion that this is the same as "correctness", which is (by and large) considered a different property that relates user expectations to actual runtime behavior.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#682

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

anon400232 wrote: post #670
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they add every revision on it, it could be interesting, but i doubt they do that. One interesting thing I have been seeing recently is newspapers quickly changing news a few hours after they posted it, in reaction to public opinion of said news (or maybe some editorial "request"). In th BBC its quite egregious, they have been posting some news, and a few hours later changing the headline and the photo, to either s…

Share a link demonstrating the BBC's egregiousness please.

I can't because stealth edits are not meant to be caught. I tried finding some on archive.org but their scrapping isnt usually fast enough.

I think some of the most noticeable ones tend to be on big political news. It happened fairly quickly with Truss. All "happy" headlines and smiling photos, to ugly photos and total lack of positive adjectives as the news of her departure became more obvious.

Sometimes they have done it on the same piece of content, a few hours apart as the narrative changed. The content of the piece was untouched but the photo and headline on the front page tell the opposite story all of a sudden.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#683

Post by Karunamon »

dmitriid wrote: post #592
Karunamon wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An even cursory reading of the list does not disqualify all, or even most of them, so not sure what you're getting at. This is childish nit picking at this point, anyone who wants to actually spend bitcoin will have no trouble finding a place to do so.

> An even cursory reading of the list does not disqualify all Did i ever say all . Read what I write, not what you think I write. For the fourth time: vanishingly few goods or services that can be exchanged for crypto > anyone who wants to actually spend bitcoin will have no trouble finding a place to do so. A very small amount of services catering mostly to first world. Since you're incapable of following context or…

Special pleading and strawmen it is, then. Again, the original claim was a qualitative one, not a quantitative one, and it remains accurate. Nothing in any of your posting disproves the original claim that "crypto can be exchanged for goods and services on its own".

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#684

Post by miracle2k »

elysian-breeze wrote: post #504
pjkundert wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, while many people believe this to be true -- there is nothing legally or morally wrong with you purchasing software from a small Russian or Iranian software developer. How do we know this, you ask? In fact, the entire Open Source (and most Closed Source) stacks depend on this fact, including the stacks underlying the entire US Government's (and its Military's) operations. Which functions on large amoun…

> morally, logically, legally and practically ridiculous. Well i mean thats your opinion not the facts. There is a whole web of regulations when dealing with those countries and if they are allowed to buy from you. There are even more laws around money movement and debt and financing. Just declaring "it shouldnt be that way. it is unfair" doesn't change the laws.

Conversely, declaring "this is the law" doesn't change the fact that the Bitcoin or Ethereum networks process these transactions anyway.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#685

Post by halpmeh »

pooper wrote: post #638
halpmeh wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re conflating legal contracts and smart contracts. Legal contracts are instruments used by two or more parties that outlines their responsibilities to one another in a way that is protected by civil law. A smart contract is just a program that runs on the blockchain.

Do you see how the name "smart contract" makes no sense? They aren't smart. In fact, they are obviously dumb. They do what the code says. They aren't a contract in the legal sense. Smart contracts are neither smart, nor contracts.

So we’ve gone from debating the technical merits to debating the name?

The name likely comes from options contracts, which are technically contracts but traded like equities. Most options are very simple tuple: (equity, strike price, call / put). The smart in smart contract can mean writing a smarter option contract.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#686

Post by hypnotortoise »

habinero wrote: post #617
halpmeh wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the output is guaranteed to be correct. Correct, as in what you specified in the contract, which may not be what you had intended, but that’s besides the point. Can you explain how the output would differ from the contract specification?

Contracts are agreements between humans. Therefore, the only "correct" outcome is the intended outcome. If your code has bugs or errors or security vulnerabilities, those will all lead to incorrect behavior. That's why smart contracts aren't useful.

Contracts are agreements between legal entities, human and non-human. "Smart" contracts in it's current form allows for automatic execution between parties, where one or both parties can be another SC. I would put them im the juridical person or non-human camp legally speaking. This property can generate quite an advanced exexutiom through cascadation effect with a lot of deployed SC on the blockchain and is publicly auditable by anyone and will be audited by a lot of people if a huge amount of financial stake is present. I personally see an immense upside in this approach rather then current contract law in TradFi, based solely on promises and insurance to customer front. IMO one such deployed contract does indeed not make it smart but an inter-connected network of them can generate systems that can be indeed called smart.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#687

Post by halpmeh »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #681
halpmeh wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the output is guaranteed to be correct. Let’s say you give me a program and ask me to run it for you. Can you guarantee that I won’t tamper with the executable? No you can’t. You can’t trust the output of an arbitrary program you give me to run. The only way you could trust my result would be to run the program yourself and verify I provided you the correct output. If you run the program yourself, then what’s th…

If your point is that the EVM byte-code that's deployed to the blockchain is immutable and that transactions which don't agree with the results of executing code will be rejected, yes, that is a true statement. I think what everyone is quibbling with is the assertion that this is the same as "correctness", which is (by and large) considered a different property that relates user expectations to actual runtime behavio…

Sorry but that’s a total straw man. Yes, if you redefine the words I used then you can make any argument you want.

In CS, correctness means with “behaves in a consistent manner with respect to a specification”. The smart contract is the specification, so yes the output of the smart contract is guaranteed to be correct with respect to the specification. Of course, there can always be be errors in the specification. If you have another definition of “correct”, let me know.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#688

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

halpmeh wrote: post #687
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your point is that the EVM byte-code that's deployed to the blockchain is immutable and that transactions which don't agree with the results of executing code will be rejected, yes, that is a true statement. I think what everyone is quibbling with is the assertion that this is the same as "correctness", which is (by and large) considered a different property that relates user expectations to actual runtime behavio…

Sorry but that’s a total straw man. Yes, if you redefine the words I used then you can make any argument you want. In CS, correctness means with “behaves in a consistent manner with respect to a specification”. The smart contract is the specification, so yes the output of the smart contract is guaranteed to be correct with respect to the specification. Of course, there can always be be errors in the specification. If…

I'm not the one redefining words here: you've redefined "code" as "specification".

Canonically, within the industrial context, there are two processes for achieving compliance of implementation with specification ("correctness"). The first is testing, the second is formal verification. In either case, you need an artifact at a higher level of abstraction (the specification) and one at a lower level (the implementation).

In testing, someone who has access to the specification can evaluate the dynamic behavior of the implementation and determine whether it matches. In formal verification, you can do the same by static analysis and proof.

If you say "the code is the specification" then correctness becomes completely vacuous. The code is correct because it runs. Great. So what? If the implementation results in behavior that is completely unintended by the author (e.g. your smart contract contains a re-entrancy problem: a notorious source of bugs, or isn't robust to EVM stack exhaustion) and you still want to claim it's "correct" then I just don't know what to suggest - we're never going to agree, and I don't think your usage is anything like standard.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#689

Post by dmitriid »

pjkundert wrote: post #521
Erikun wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, removing the last paragraph would improve your post immensely. It would be a shame if the post got downvoted to oblivion because of it.

I agree. But, my last 30 years of laissez faire has resulted in forums like HN becoming toxic with smug "Crypto is a solution in search of a problem" and "told ya Crypto was all a scam, yer dumb" Bros, yelling low-research insults without anyone pushing back on them... So, I'll leave it. If only the "Eternal September" crowd is allowed to be comfortable here (because we all just "let them have their opinion", as usua…

> yelling low-research insults without anyone pushing back on them...

You'd think that in the past 14 years anyone would come up with a well-researched eloquent push back to the multitude of actually well researched eloquent questions that have been frequently asked of crypto enthusiasts.

However, all we get back is utter drivel, cultlike devotion, and "just join the discords".

The time of of eloquent questions has long passed. There is now a 0.999999999999999999999999 probabilty of anything crypto-related to be a scam, a solution in search of a problem, or a solution that ignores or is oblivious of the real world.

It's on crypto enthuiasts to prove that their latest scam du-jour isn't a scam, and is an actual solution.

Re: AWS and Blockchain

#690

Post by dmitriid »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #420
candiddevmike wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the benefit of deploying something on a platform controlled by no one? Why not just run all of those things on a server you own?

One benefit is that you can more credibly offer to keep your promises. I haven’t audited Uniswap’s smart contract code, but if I did I feel I could be pretty confident they won’t steal my money. Meanwhile, users of FTX depended on government regulation and pinky-swears to keep their money safe, but since SBF owned the platform he could do whatever he wanted. disclosure: I work for a crypto company

> I haven’t audited Uniswap’s smart contract code, but if I did I feel I could be pretty confident they won’t steal my money.

Funny how there now have been multiple contracts which successfully passed multiple audits, have survived bug bounties, and still had errors in them.

But sure, do tell me how you can audit and instantly spot all the issues in a smart contract.

> users of FTX depended on government regulation and pinky-swears to keep their money safe, but since SBF owned the platform he could do whatever he wanted.

FTX was deliberately set up ouside of government regulation, and with no oversight.

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