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LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

blog.documentfoundation.org

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Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#91

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

web3isgoing wrote: post #18

You would think a message board called "hacker news" would be more open to blue sky thinking. Zero knowledge proofs and a tamper proof ledger of timestamped cryptographic signatures could open up new use cases that are different than relying on central authorities. One idea, document signing: vitalik.eth signs a PDF, everybody can verify the PDF is signed by his private key. He has to broadcast his public key for thi…

I like Hackernews as a place where you can read articles related to technology, which are sometimes really interesting. As for most of the users and most of the comments, this is just another highly toxic social media platform on par with Facebook

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#92

Post by maccard »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #89
maccard wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is fine to publish those signatures on a website you are known to control (or Tweet them out or whatever). Say I tweet, post on reddit and internet archive both of those pages. When somenoe goes to verify later on, the 4 values are different to the value you've provided to me. Which of the 5 values is trustworthy? This is the problem that a blockchain verifies, in theory. Unfortunately, there's two different ans…

Like I said to someone else, the real answer is to not sign documents that are wrong. To avoid doing this, you might have to be more precise than "my public key is X." You probably should include a timestamp, an expiration for the key, a hash of the previous message so people can tell what is supposed to supercede what, etc. That way, if people get multiple messages from you, they can actually verify which one is sup…

> Like I said to someone else, the real answer is to not sign documents that are wrong.

If "don't make mistakes" was a viable solution, we just wouldn't have a whole family of problems.

> you probably should include a timestamp, an expiration for the key, a hash of the previous message so people can tell what is supposed to supercede what, etc.

An expiration for your current key doesn't _really_ help the problem of "I don't know where to get the next key from". A blockchain _in theory_ formalises the "disseminate your public key through this accessible place" (which you've defined as twitter, I might define as a CA registry that comes with browser and someone else might define as a blockchain), but this solution doesn't actually solve the problem of "the public key is different, which one do I use?" which _is_ what a blockchain does, except in reality, it's useless because when these things diverge you almost certainly look elsewhere for trust.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#93

Post by DemocracyFTW2 »

mavhc wrote: post #21
Sakos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm open to the idea that blockchain might somehow be useful for something somehow in the future. I don't see what LibreOffice could gain from blockchain. I also think it's telling that they'd rather ignore the negative feedback because they want to apparently continue on this path than actually recognize that people don't want blockchain garbage ruining what's otherwise a good project. I'm looking forward to the nex…

Why shouldn't you ignore feedback that's ill informed, reactionary, or just wrong?

Are we already at the point where saying that crypto is a scam and the blockchain won't serve a useful purpose in a word processor is—"reactionary"? Dude get a grip.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#94

Post by DemocracyFTW2 »

mavhc wrote: post #87
actually_a_dog wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because it's coming from the people who read your blog and use your software?

Most of your users are idiots though, they'll just ask for a faster horse

Aren't you the guy who tried to sell a faster blockchain to me last week so I can keep better track of all the horses in my stable?

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#95

Post by propogandist »

web3isgoing wrote: post #76
forgotpwd16 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so that we can be sure we are verifying the correct PDF Umm, what? Someone cannot create a PDF and sign with someone else's key. This would've defeat the purpose of public-key cryptography. >it's not a great storage mechanism for this system to scale to thousands or millions of signatures Not sure how recommending a system that scales not on signatures but on messages shared is better. >Another alternative is these…

Vitalik, or maybe a charitable non profit organization, signs two PDFs: one says "our new public key is X" and the other says "our new public key is Y." Both of these documents verify correctly, but how do you know which is the latest? One approach is to use Twitter as your append-only timestamped ledger, and broadcast a link to the latest file on IPFS. Another is to build a new centralized service and promise it is…

> rely on a public distributed ledger

which brings us back to the point that the ETH foundation is trying to link LibreOffice to ETH cryptocurrency

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#96

Post by prepend »

octagons wrote: post #7
Phelinofist wrote: post #4

What possible use case could this be for?

It could MAYBE be used to create an open/libre clone of services like DocuSign, but there are certainly already ways of validating a signature on a document that don’t require inserting a blockchain into an office suite! Beyond that, I also cannot think of any valid use cases

Document signing is a good potential use case. The current transaction fee is $.50 [0] so that’s not too bad to securely sign a document.

There’s a separate issue of verifying and identity proofing wallets.

But I think blockchain actually helps solve the problem with pgp of trusting unknown identities and key exchange. Currently if a document is pgp signed by John Doe, I’ve got to figure out if it’s really John Doe and that’s a bit of work if I don’t already have John’s public key.

[0] https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_transaction_...

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#97

Post by pclmulqdq »

maccard wrote: post #92
pclmulqdq wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said to someone else, the real answer is to not sign documents that are wrong. To avoid doing this, you might have to be more precise than "my public key is X." You probably should include a timestamp, an expiration for the key, a hash of the previous message so people can tell what is supposed to supercede what, etc. That way, if people get multiple messages from you, they can actually verify which one is sup…

> Like I said to someone else, the real answer is to not sign documents that are wrong. If "don't make mistakes" was a viable solution, we just wouldn't have a whole family of problems. > you probably should include a timestamp, an expiration for the key, a hash of the previous message so people can tell what is supposed to supercede what, etc. An expiration for your current key doesn't _really_ help the problem of "…

By the way, this chain of documents with precise information is a blockchain in itself. You don't need another one. Particularly not for disseminating information, where it doesn't really solve any problems. Publish those documents wherever you want, and include the appropriate information so that they are not wrong. That's a blockchain.

I will add that "don't make stupid mistakes" is a key tenet of cryptography in general - and blockchains in specific.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#99

Post by pjc50 »

sdiacom wrote: post #6
pyr0hu wrote: post #2

I don't know, talking about blockchain became such an extreme topic that one can't just talk about it, even if it's a note that "We had a chat with Eth Foundation" and people are coming with foaming mouth. The article does not mention that they are thinking about _crypto_ but _blockchain_, which, seems like not a lot of people know about, does not 100% means "im going to release a shitcoin, haha, rugpull". It's insan…

Good. The mere mention of "combining existing successful open-source product with blockchain" should get about the same reaction as "combining fruit bowls with metal spikes". This is a good thing, it means that people are waking up to what crypto actually is. There is no successful or interesting combination of "useful thing" and "blockchain", unless your definition of success is siphoning money from technologically…

> Being approached by the Ethereum foundation should be treated like cold emails asking if you'd like to put a link to a casino in your website.

Yes. It's become a sort of memetic virus that causes people to lose all their critical thinking abilities and immediately start trying to turn everything into paperclips (well, turn energy into discarded hash computations). This is why it gets a response like Alien or The Thing where people who appear to be compromised by the mind virus get the flamethrowers turned on them.

Re: LibreOffice blogs about Blockchain, locks comments after negative user feedback

#100

Post by IanCal »

octagons wrote: post #7
Phelinofist wrote: post #4

What possible use case could this be for?

It could MAYBE be used to create an open/libre clone of services like DocuSign, but there are certainly already ways of validating a signature on a document that don’t require inserting a blockchain into an office suite! Beyond that, I also cannot think of any valid use cases

You wouldn't need to "insert a blockchain into an office suite", you would simply call out to an external service that already exists.
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