Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency • Hacker News Board

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#81

Post by edraferi » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

jherdman wrote: post #65

cantrip wrote: post #62

This is a disaster, as it will likely succeed and in doing so make the entire world less secure. Telegram is not a secure messaging platform, despite marketing themselves as such. Signal has built a simple, seamless, and beautiful messaging platform whose security is based on solid cryptography, not marketing, bug contests, or chasing the latest tech fad.

> Telegram is not a secure messaging platform, despite marketing themselves as such. Supporting sources?

Basically, the problem is that they invented a lot of their own crypto from scratch. When asked about this, they said "it's fine, we're smart" and then claimed to prove their security with a red herring contest.

Here are some publications about security problems with the platform:

- A class project at MIT found several problems (May 2017) [0]

- They were featured on Crypto Fails (Dec 2013) [1]

- Jakob Jakobsen @ Aarhus University published a vulnerability discovery (May 2015) [2] and then did his Masters thesis on additional problems (Sep 2015) [3]

-Tomas Susanka @ Czech Technical University in Prague published additional vulnerabilities (2016) [4]

Plenty more out there.

[0] https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.857/2017/project/19.pdf

[1] http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-crypta...

[2] https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf

[3] http://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf

[4] https://www.susanka.eu/files/telegram-article.pdf

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#82

Post by oh_sigh » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

meri_dian wrote: post #80

The ability of a cryptocurrency to overcome attack is based on the amount of computational power expended on hashing. As more and more standalone cryptocurrencies are launched, the total amount of computational power expended on each will decrease and therefore make each more vulnerable to a 51% attack. This problem is especially pertinent to niche currencies like Telegram's which are tied to a specific company servi…

That only holds true for PoW systems

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#83

Post by Xophmeister » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

meri_dian wrote: post #80

The ability of a cryptocurrency to overcome attack is based on the amount of computational power expended on hashing. As more and more standalone cryptocurrencies are launched, the total amount of computational power expended on each will decrease and therefore make each more vulnerable to a 51% attack. This problem is especially pertinent to niche currencies like Telegram's which are tied to a specific company servi…

Computational power is not a constant.

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#84

Post by oh_sigh » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:31 PM UTC

rando444 wrote: post #73

lakechfoma wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this same thing happening at some corporations now trying to create blockchain as a service. If one corporation, or just a few, are the only ones participating in the chain then why not just use traditional DBs?..

The main reason is because you can't edit a blockchain. With a database there's always ways around editing the data if you own the entire system. With a blockchain it's not possible to edit the data without replacing the entire chain.

You could still use merkle trees it similar technology in your own database and publish checkpoint hashes of the DB every so often

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#85

Post by meri_dian » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #82

meri_dian wrote: post #80

The ability of a cryptocurrency to overcome attack is based on the amount of computational power expended on hashing. As more and more standalone cryptocurrencies are launched, the total amount of computational power expended on each will decrease and therefore make each more vulnerable to a 51% attack. This problem is especially pertinent to niche currencies like Telegram's which are tied to a specific company servi…

That only holds true for PoW systems

How is PoS safe from this?

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#86

Post by jonknee » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:45 PM UTC

tzahola wrote: post #63

jonknee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can't even present a link to purchase digital goods through a browser... You can open Mobile Safari and search Amazon for a Kindle book, but you can't use an Amazon app of any sort to do part of it.

Weird, considering the fact that the Bandcamp app lets you buy music digitally via PayPal. Am I missing some important difference between the two?

I just downloaded Bandcamp for iOS and under Digital Album I see "Not available for purchase on this device" along with links to purchase the physical vinyl or CD.

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#87

Post by OJFord » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

Its founder:

> Messaging apps shouldn't make money

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/messaging-apps

An interview which of course does not bind him nor the company to that philosophy, but it is slightly encouraging.

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#88

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #44

Maro wrote: post #30

What's the value of the in-app currency being a cryptocurrency (putting aside hype/pr), vs calling it a virtual currency, a Mysql database with a API on top? Dropping to a technical level, if the miners are all run by Telegram, then I think it's just a pointless overhead over Mysql. On the other hand, if anybody can run miners, I don't comprehend what value that adds, what it means.

Because if Telegram ever goes under as a company, your "virtual currency" doesn't disappear overnight.

And then nobody ever maintains the software and it still falls apart eventually.

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#89

Post by KasianFranks » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

I'm all for it.

Re: Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency

#90

Post by maksimum » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #84

rando444 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason is because you can't edit a blockchain. With a database there's always ways around editing the data if you own the entire system. With a blockchain it's not possible to edit the data without replacing the entire chain.

You could still use merkle trees it similar technology in your own database and publish checkpoint hashes of the DB every so often

Then it seems like the data being hashed would be serializations of databases rather than sets of transactions. I.e. you would be publishing snapshots of the world rather than agreed-upon changes starting from a pre-agreed on state.