5 ms·

First off, when did "blockchain" become an uncountable noun? "blockchains" or "blockchain technology" sounds much more natural. Anyways, I wish more people in

by zwegner 10y ago

First off, when did "blockchain" become an uncountable noun? "blockchains" or "blockchain technology" sounds much more natural. Anyways, I wish more people in the media would differentiate between the Merkel tree, providing the immutable ledger part, and the proof-of-work distributed consensus algorithm, which provides some degree of trust through burning an ever-increasing amount of power. Most of the benefits the author lists would be true of just the Merkel tree without needing the wasteful proof-of-work consensus system, if it's used between trusted parties. Also, even if there's not complete trust, it would still provide an audit trail so that appropriate actions could be taken against bad actors. When the author later talks about governance boards, that just underscores the incongruity even more. While I'm sure governance boards could be shoehorned into some DAO-like system over distributed consensus, it seems a lot easier to just get rid of the whole distributed consensus altogether and give some digital signatures to the governance board that can sign/bless the Merkel tree.

Animats 10y ago
Most of the benefits the author lists would be true of just the Merkel tree without needing the wasteful proof-of-work consensus system, if it's used between trusted parties. The parties don't have to be trusted. It's the opposite. A good blockchain needs mutually mistrustful parties who are not anonymous. If somebody tries to tamper with the ledger, all the other parties can easily tell who did it. It takes collusion of all parties to change history invisibly. Thus, you want parties who are not entirely cooperative.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  > The parties don't have to be trusted. Actually, zwenger was right. Without a proof of work, they do. What's a blockchain? It's a data structure with a cryptographically strong CRC mechanism. But there's nothing stopping me from writing a new set of data into a new chain and passing it off as the original. Sure, you may notice, but you can't prove my new chain is forged. I'll say the backup chain you're using as proof is the forgery... It takes a proof of work to make the chain effectively uneditable. (Uneditable without paying for the work, which has been selected to be too expensive to be practical.)
  - schoen 10y ago
    > Sure, you may notice, but you can't prove my new chain is forged. I'll say the backup chain you're using as proof is the forgery... If the items in the chain have digital signatures, you can prove that the people they're signed by contradicted themselves (or lost control of their signing keys). In Bitcoin people have felt that this wasn't good enough by itself, perhaps because there's not necessarily recourse against a counterparty who double-spends money, but you can still show that the double-spend attempt happened and who (in the sense of a signing key/address) was responsible for it.
    - EdHominem 10y ago
      If the signatures are enough, you don't need the chain. If the signatures aren't enough, you need the chain and a proof of work.
      - schoen 10y ago
        I'll try to think of a counterexample, but your observation may well be right in all or almost all cases.
      - zmanian 10y ago
        You can use a "blockchain", an enforcer of security deposit against double spending rather than as the raw double spend prevention mechanism.[0] [0] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1033 https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1033
        schoen 10y ago
        "Soothly we live in mighty years!" It looks like the underlying mechanism that they use for this was described in https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2810103.2813686 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2810103.2813686
- kushti 10y ago
  "A good blockchain needs mutually mistrustful parties who are not anonymous" - in opposite, blockchain is a good solution for open system with anonymous participants. For other settings, there are more efficient solutions(e.g. PBFTs)
  - wmf 10y ago
    PBFT is considered blockchain now.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
grubles 10y ago
>First off, when did "blockchain" become an uncountable noun? When the businessmen/marketers/cryptocurrency-illiterate got their hands on it and tried to distance themselves from the only useful blockchain in existence: the Bitcoin blockchain.
- countingteeth 10y ago
  You've overcounted useful blockchain (lol) by one.
  - kylebenzle 10y ago
    LoL, as I sit here trading $10s of thousands online with no permission from any government or depending on a private company I need to trust. Your pound, dollar and yuan dropping like rocks, yeh, lol is right!
    - tdb7893 10y ago
      Yeah but that's the problem with bitcoin. It seems to be mainly just a speculative currency.
paulcole 10y ago
>First off, when did "blockchain" become an uncountable noun? "blockchains" or "blockchain technology" sounds much more natural. Good to see we're focusing on what matters.
dozzie 10y ago
You may want to revise your view on who invented the data structure. It wasn't Merkel (Angela?), it was Ralph Merkle. You use incorrect name too consistently for it to be just a typo.

by zwegner 10y ago

Animats 10y ago

Most of the benefits the author lists would be true of just the Merkel tree without needing the wasteful proof-of-work consensus system, if it's used between trusted parties. The parties don't have to be trusted. It's the opposite. A good blockchain needs mutually mistrustful parties who are not anonymous. If somebody tries to tamper with the ledger, all the other parties can easily tell who did it. It takes collusion of all parties to change history invisibly. Thus, you want parties who are not entirely cooperative.

EdHominem 10y ago
> The parties don't have to be trusted. Actually, zwenger was right. Without a proof of work, they do. What's a blockchain? It's a data structure with a cryptographically strong CRC mechanism. But there's nothing stopping me from writing a new set of data into a new chain and passing it off as the original. Sure, you may notice, but you can't prove my new chain is forged. I'll say the backup chain you're using as proof is the forgery... It takes a proof of work to make the chain effectively uneditable. (Uneditable without paying for the work, which has been selected to be too expensive to be practical.)
- schoen 10y ago
  > Sure, you may notice, but you can't prove my new chain is forged. I'll say the backup chain you're using as proof is the forgery... If the items in the chain have digital signatures, you can prove that the people they're signed by contradicted themselves (or lost control of their signing keys). In Bitcoin people have felt that this wasn't good enough by itself, perhaps because there's not necessarily recourse against a counterparty who double-spends money, but you can still show that the double-spend attempt happened and who (in the sense of a signing key/address) was responsible for it.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    If the signatures are enough, you don't need the chain. If the signatures aren't enough, you need the chain and a proof of work.
    - schoen 10y ago
      I'll try to think of a counterexample, but your observation may well be right in all or almost all cases.
    - zmanian 10y ago
      You can use a "blockchain", an enforcer of security deposit against double spending rather than as the raw double spend prevention mechanism.[0] [0] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1033 https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1033
      - schoen 10y ago
        "Soothly we live in mighty years!" It looks like the underlying mechanism that they use for this was described in https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2810103.2813686 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2810103.2813686
kushti 10y ago
"A good blockchain needs mutually mistrustful parties who are not anonymous" - in opposite, blockchain is a good solution for open system with anonymous participants. For other settings, there are more efficient solutions(e.g. PBFTs)
- wmf 10y ago
  PBFT is considered blockchain now.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

grubles 10y ago

>First off, when did "blockchain" become an uncountable noun? When the businessmen/marketers/cryptocurrency-illiterate got their hands on it and tried to distance themselves from the only useful blockchain in existence: the Bitcoin blockchain.

countingteeth 10y ago
You've overcounted useful blockchain (lol) by one.
- kylebenzle 10y ago
  LoL, as I sit here trading $10s of thousands online with no permission from any government or depending on a private company I need to trust. Your pound, dollar and yuan dropping like rocks, yeh, lol is right!
  - tdb7893 10y ago
    Yeah but that's the problem with bitcoin. It seems to be mainly just a speculative currency.

paulcole 10y ago

>First off, when did "blockchain" become an uncountable noun? "blockchains" or "blockchain technology" sounds much more natural. Good to see we're focusing on what matters.

dozzie 10y ago

You may want to revise your view on who invented the data structure. It wasn't Merkel (Angela?), it was Ralph Merkle. You use incorrect name too consistently for it to be just a typo.