6 ms·

> There's one point in particular that took me a while to grasp: while you can write code that runs on the Ethereum network, every single node has to process th

by nullc 9y ago

> There's one point in particular that took me a while to grasp: while you can write code that runs on the Ethereum network, every single node has to process that code. Yep. Unfortunately the creators of Ethereum marketed it heavily as a "world computer" on promotional roadshows, claiming it would replace Facebook and whatnot. Perhaps more interesting is that, in my view, Ethereum has it wrong: re-executing computation is a really foolish way to do what it can actually do-- which is conditionally allow changes only if a stated predicate holds. Check out this presentation by my colleague: Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGE6jrVmt_I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGE6jrVmt_I Slides: https://cyber.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/russelloconnor.pdf https://cyber.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/russelloconno... > contracts for financial purposes, voting systems, insurance, or whatever else. Many of these applications are severely harmed by the lack of privacy in the recompute-everything model.

omarchowdhury 9y ago
I'm curious to know what roadshows the Ethereum people were marketing in?
herval 9y ago
How would Ethereum “replace Facebook”?
- uncle_d 9y ago
  Well, it can't in its present form, but there is a market (me, at least) for a distributed app framework that would be the basis for uncensored (and uncensorable) serverless p2p versions of all your favorite social media.
  - Simon_says 9y ago
    I don't know about the serverless part, but wasn't this the promise of Diaspora?
  - K0SM0S 9y ago
    Count me in as well. For about a decade I've argued that 'we' need a decentralized, encrypted, peer-to-peer way of communication wherein each user physically and legally owns their data (only granting temporary/revocable read rights to other users) and controls said rights on an ad-hoc basis. Including making it public as long as you damn please. Basically a digital metaphor that you own your 'space' (eg home) and grant other people a temporary right to come in and see/use an item or hear/participate in a conversation. Strong emphasis on the legal aspect since no gov or law enforcement should be able to peek inside without proper authorization (warrant, probable cause, etc). Diaspora indeed was an interesting idea in theory (good first step I'd say) but the execution sadly was flawed (too cumbersome to sell it to anyone, even free as in beer). As far as I'm concerned, no social solution satisfies these tenets yet, and so that's an open 'market' as we speak. Blockchain is conceptually a good basis for history/logging (I'd considered torrent to be a good candidate before that). Monetization of user data could be achieved on an individual basis by granting rights to commercial entities (eg Xbox, Spotify, clothing brand...) to monitor specific activities (eg my gaming metrics, my listening metrics etc). You'd have per-user contracts (eg Spotify authorized by x million people to monitor their musical habits, paying each a few cents per week possibly deducted from their bill if subscribed to the actual premium service). No middleman, or at least not necessary by design if you can in-house the whole monitoring/marketing (but agencies would likely appear, such as Google adword or Facebook ads operate currently). In this design, even Facebook or any social media would have to be granted rights to read your data, and could not hold/copy it beyond said authorization (in storage space, also in time). The whole point being to transfer physical and legal ownership back to users, thus able to revoke all rights to anyone, and operate solely on a peer-to-peer basis (maybe I just want to talk to a few people and that's it). Newsfeeds of sorts can also be envisioned on a per-user basis if said user runs some dedicated software which sorts and presents data this user has viewing rights to, hopefully in a much more customizable way than current Silicon tech monopolies. At least that's the idea. I'm pretty sure we'll eventually have something like that, we can't keep on digitalising our world with ever less control, it's a bit of a country without public space and no individual private space either, only corporations (not far from the ontology of fascism, although consensually accepted here since you're not obligated legally, only socially pressured into using said networks). But from this idea to actual execution, there is still a pretty huge gap, notably because any worthy solution needs to be actually adopted by a majority of users. It needs to be sellable to the highest extent (even if it were free), and thus provide actual value over existing solutions. Tooling, ease of use, clarity so as not to trick users, all aspects matter. Ten years ago I thought this would be long done by now. I evolved into thinking this is actually somewhat of a hard problem (per real-world constraints of all kinds, ie social, political, ethical, not strictly technically) that I want to actively try to tackle personally, whatever I can bring to a solution.
  - acdha 9y ago
    I've heard that idea mentioned a lot but it doesn't seem like anyone has a good strategy for dealing with abuse. This seems especially problematic with a blockchain which cannot be altered: what do you do when someone creates a fake profile, uploads revenge/child porn, nazi propaganda, etc.? In many parts of the world that has a legal requirement to be blocked which would seem to either require a way to rewrite history or the entire system being blocked in that jurisdiction.
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      > what do you do when someone creates a fake profile, uploads revenge/child porn, nazi propaganda, etc.? Ignore it and move on. Block the user from your personal feed if you want. > In many parts of the world that has a legal requirement to be blocked which would seem to either require a way to rewrite history or the entire system being blocked in that jurisdiction. How has that worked out against BitTorrent?
      - acdha 9y ago
        > Ignore it and move on. Block the user from your personal feed if you want. That doesn't address the questions: 1. How can you ignore something which is causing you or someone you care about harm? Will you operate a node which keeps that content available against the wishes of the target? (For that matter, how many people will use a network which prevents you from removing mistakes?) 2. You can't just ignore things with legal implications — e.g. if someone uploads legally restricted content, everyone participating in the network has to expect legal consequences even if they personally aren't troubled by it. If you're in Germany and someone else can get Nazi content from your system, do you really think “I didn't upload it and there's no way to block it” is going to lead to a court reaction other than an order to turn it off until the underlying technology is fixed? 3. Ignoring that many places do block BitTorrent, it's different in the key aspect that torrents are independent. Someone who hosts Linux ISOs doesn't have to worry about getting sued because a different user is distributing copyrighted movies. That doesn't seem to fit with a blockchain model and it seems like a major problem growing a social network beyond the immediate founders if everyone has to find a private cluster to join.
  - cubano 9y ago
    You would think so, but doesn't the lack of one already existing speak rather loudly about it's market potential?
- TD-Linux 9y ago
  It wouldn't, though a lot of the initial "Web 3.0" hype seemed to imply that, such as this post by a cofounder [1]. Even their website used to mention Facebook [2]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140723210829/http://insightsintoamodernworld.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/apps-what-web-30-looks-like.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140723210829/http://insightsin... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20140801161657/https://www.ethereum.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140801161657/https://www.ether...
- JasoonS 9y ago
  Here is one early stage project I've heard of using ethereum: https://akasha.world/ https://akasha.world/

by nullc 9y ago

omarchowdhury 9y ago

I'm curious to know what roadshows the Ethereum people were marketing in?

herval 9y ago

How would Ethereum “replace Facebook”?

uncle_d 9y ago
Well, it can't in its present form, but there is a market (me, at least) for a distributed app framework that would be the basis for uncensored (and uncensorable) serverless p2p versions of all your favorite social media.
- Simon_says 9y ago
  I don't know about the serverless part, but wasn't this the promise of Diaspora?
- K0SM0S 9y ago
  Count me in as well. For about a decade I've argued that 'we' need a decentralized, encrypted, peer-to-peer way of communication wherein each user physically and legally owns their data (only granting temporary/revocable read rights to other users) and controls said rights on an ad-hoc basis. Including making it public as long as you damn please. Basically a digital metaphor that you own your 'space' (eg home) and grant other people a temporary right to come in and see/use an item or hear/participate in a conversation. Strong emphasis on the legal aspect since no gov or law enforcement should be able to peek inside without proper authorization (warrant, probable cause, etc). Diaspora indeed was an interesting idea in theory (good first step I'd say) but the execution sadly was flawed (too cumbersome to sell it to anyone, even free as in beer). As far as I'm concerned, no social solution satisfies these tenets yet, and so that's an open 'market' as we speak. Blockchain is conceptually a good basis for history/logging (I'd considered torrent to be a good candidate before that). Monetization of user data could be achieved on an individual basis by granting rights to commercial entities (eg Xbox, Spotify, clothing brand...) to monitor specific activities (eg my gaming metrics, my listening metrics etc). You'd have per-user contracts (eg Spotify authorized by x million people to monitor their musical habits, paying each a few cents per week possibly deducted from their bill if subscribed to the actual premium service). No middleman, or at least not necessary by design if you can in-house the whole monitoring/marketing (but agencies would likely appear, such as Google adword or Facebook ads operate currently). In this design, even Facebook or any social media would have to be granted rights to read your data, and could not hold/copy it beyond said authorization (in storage space, also in time). The whole point being to transfer physical and legal ownership back to users, thus able to revoke all rights to anyone, and operate solely on a peer-to-peer basis (maybe I just want to talk to a few people and that's it). Newsfeeds of sorts can also be envisioned on a per-user basis if said user runs some dedicated software which sorts and presents data this user has viewing rights to, hopefully in a much more customizable way than current Silicon tech monopolies. At least that's the idea. I'm pretty sure we'll eventually have something like that, we can't keep on digitalising our world with ever less control, it's a bit of a country without public space and no individual private space either, only corporations (not far from the ontology of fascism, although consensually accepted here since you're not obligated legally, only socially pressured into using said networks). But from this idea to actual execution, there is still a pretty huge gap, notably because any worthy solution needs to be actually adopted by a majority of users. It needs to be sellable to the highest extent (even if it were free), and thus provide actual value over existing solutions. Tooling, ease of use, clarity so as not to trick users, all aspects matter. Ten years ago I thought this would be long done by now. I evolved into thinking this is actually somewhat of a hard problem (per real-world constraints of all kinds, ie social, political, ethical, not strictly technically) that I want to actively try to tackle personally, whatever I can bring to a solution.
- acdha 9y ago
  I've heard that idea mentioned a lot but it doesn't seem like anyone has a good strategy for dealing with abuse. This seems especially problematic with a blockchain which cannot be altered: what do you do when someone creates a fake profile, uploads revenge/child porn, nazi propaganda, etc.? In many parts of the world that has a legal requirement to be blocked which would seem to either require a way to rewrite history or the entire system being blocked in that jurisdiction.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    > what do you do when someone creates a fake profile, uploads revenge/child porn, nazi propaganda, etc.? Ignore it and move on. Block the user from your personal feed if you want. > In many parts of the world that has a legal requirement to be blocked which would seem to either require a way to rewrite history or the entire system being blocked in that jurisdiction. How has that worked out against BitTorrent?
    - acdha 9y ago
      > Ignore it and move on. Block the user from your personal feed if you want. That doesn't address the questions: 1. How can you ignore something which is causing you or someone you care about harm? Will you operate a node which keeps that content available against the wishes of the target? (For that matter, how many people will use a network which prevents you from removing mistakes?) 2. You can't just ignore things with legal implications — e.g. if someone uploads legally restricted content, everyone participating in the network has to expect legal consequences even if they personally aren't troubled by it. If you're in Germany and someone else can get Nazi content from your system, do you really think “I didn't upload it and there's no way to block it” is going to lead to a court reaction other than an order to turn it off until the underlying technology is fixed? 3. Ignoring that many places do block BitTorrent, it's different in the key aspect that torrents are independent. Someone who hosts Linux ISOs doesn't have to worry about getting sued because a different user is distributing copyrighted movies. That doesn't seem to fit with a blockchain model and it seems like a major problem growing a social network beyond the immediate founders if everyone has to find a private cluster to join.
- cubano 9y ago
  You would think so, but doesn't the lack of one already existing speak rather loudly about it's market potential?
TD-Linux 9y ago
It wouldn't, though a lot of the initial "Web 3.0" hype seemed to imply that, such as this post by a cofounder [1]. Even their website used to mention Facebook [2]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140723210829/http://insightsintoamodernworld.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/apps-what-web-30-looks-like.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140723210829/http://insightsin... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20140801161657/https://www.ethereum.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140801161657/https://www.ether...
JasoonS 9y ago
Here is one early stage project I've heard of using ethereum: https://akasha.world/ https://akasha.world/