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No Bitcoin-based protocol that handles money, at least. https://www.civic.com/ https://www.civic.com/ is based on the Bitcoin protocol. It's a service for putt

No Bitcoin-based protocol that handles money, at least. https://www.civic.com/ https://www.civic.com/ is based on the Bitcoin protocol. It's a service for putting signed information about a user in a block chain, so that you don't need to implement your own verification of adresses, phone numbers, e-mails, etc being real, as long as you trust the signer of that information in the Civic block chain. This is a read heavy, not write heavy, block chain - reads of signed information is more common that writes of the signatures. It's definitely my favorite block chain based technology that isn't a currency.

xdeqx366 9y ago
What double spend problem is that solving though? Why not a broadcast network? Why blockchain...
- majewsky 9y ago
  It's just because "blockchain" is the new magic word that gets you funded. You can do the same with public-key cryptography, but that's boring 70s technology. Who'd want that!?
  - drngdds 9y ago
    Isn't "the same with public-key cryptography" exactly what Keybase is?
    - RasputinsBro 9y ago
      I'm not the guy you were talking to, but I still don't know what keybase actually is. Let me know if you understand it.
      - aaomidi 9y ago
        You put your public (and private if you want) pgp key on there. Then you make public posts on your social media signed with that key. This way, you show everyone that you own these accounts or websites or whatever. If any of the proofs changes, it puts it on a timeline. If your account has a hard reset it notifies all your followers. Basically its safeish key sharing in the modern world.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        RasputinsBro 9y ago
        > You put your public (and private if you want) pgp key on there. Then you make public posts on your social media signed with that key. This way, you show everyone that you own these accounts or websites or whatever. If I don't want to give keybase my private key, which I obviously don't, how can it sign my tweets? What is even the use case of signing my tweets? Presumably if I can access my account, t's me. There's only two alternative scenarios: someone hacks my account, or twitter is trying to screw me. Is there really a use case for this? Other than a few very high risk individuals, I don't think there's a point in signing tweets. One of us (or both) is missing something here :D
        robjan 9y ago
        > If I don't want to give keybase my private key, which I obviously don't, how can it sign my tweets? You don't sign all of your tweets. Just one which proves that the person who owns the keybase account also owns the twitter account in question. Through transitivity, you can then prove that you are the same person who owns a particular facebook/github/HN account if you also sign a post on those services. > Presumably if I can access my account, t's me. That proves the person logged into the account is authorised to log in, not that the owner of the account is a particular person or the same person that owns another account on another service.
        RasputinsBro 9y ago
        > That proves the person logged into the account is authorised to log in, not that the owner of the account is a particular person or the same person that owns another account on another service. Keybase can't know who the person logged into the account is either. But they can tweet, and so keybase will tell everyone that the twitter account which has signed tweets using my private keep is tweeting.
        9y ago
- augustl 9y ago
  Interesting question! I'm not an expert, but I suppose the answer is convenience of implementation? By using Bitcoin, the system is already in place for miners to verify signatures, tokens (i.e. "civiccoins") to pay for getting stuff verified on the chain by the signers, a well made and proven decentralized protocol, etc.
- tlrobinson 9y ago
  Breaking News: Civic Has Reached Its Goal Of Selling $33 Million In Digital Currency Tokens (to be explicit: the problem being solved isn't the "double spend" problem, it's the "make the founders rich with minimal effort" problem)
  - bobwaycott 9y ago
    Yeah, that bothered me. As did the mention of press outlets allegedly featuring this group/company, complete with no links to these alleged features. Reads as a total scam-based vaporware. Cool domain, though. Would love to own it.
- tchow 9y ago
  May be wrong but I think it's made to 'solve' centralised identity
- buckminster 9y ago
  A blockchain - a secure public ledger with immutable history - does not need to use mining for authentication. When banks, etc. talk about blockchain I think they mean something that is publicly verifiable but only privately updatable.

xdeqx366 9y ago

What double spend problem is that solving though? Why not a broadcast network? Why blockchain...

majewsky 9y ago
It's just because "blockchain" is the new magic word that gets you funded. You can do the same with public-key cryptography, but that's boring 70s technology. Who'd want that!?
- drngdds 9y ago
  Isn't "the same with public-key cryptography" exactly what Keybase is?
  - RasputinsBro 9y ago
    I'm not the guy you were talking to, but I still don't know what keybase actually is. Let me know if you understand it.
    - aaomidi 9y ago
      You put your public (and private if you want) pgp key on there. Then you make public posts on your social media signed with that key. This way, you show everyone that you own these accounts or websites or whatever. If any of the proofs changes, it puts it on a timeline. If your account has a hard reset it notifies all your followers. Basically its safeish key sharing in the modern world.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - RasputinsBro 9y ago
        > You put your public (and private if you want) pgp key on there. Then you make public posts on your social media signed with that key. This way, you show everyone that you own these accounts or websites or whatever. If I don't want to give keybase my private key, which I obviously don't, how can it sign my tweets? What is even the use case of signing my tweets? Presumably if I can access my account, t's me. There's only two alternative scenarios: someone hacks my account, or twitter is trying to screw me. Is there really a use case for this? Other than a few very high risk individuals, I don't think there's a point in signing tweets. One of us (or both) is missing something here :D
        robjan 9y ago
        > If I don't want to give keybase my private key, which I obviously don't, how can it sign my tweets? You don't sign all of your tweets. Just one which proves that the person who owns the keybase account also owns the twitter account in question. Through transitivity, you can then prove that you are the same person who owns a particular facebook/github/HN account if you also sign a post on those services. > Presumably if I can access my account, t's me. That proves the person logged into the account is authorised to log in, not that the owner of the account is a particular person or the same person that owns another account on another service.
        RasputinsBro 9y ago
        > That proves the person logged into the account is authorised to log in, not that the owner of the account is a particular person or the same person that owns another account on another service. Keybase can't know who the person logged into the account is either. But they can tweet, and so keybase will tell everyone that the twitter account which has signed tweets using my private keep is tweeting.
        9y ago
augustl 9y ago
Interesting question! I'm not an expert, but I suppose the answer is convenience of implementation? By using Bitcoin, the system is already in place for miners to verify signatures, tokens (i.e. "civiccoins") to pay for getting stuff verified on the chain by the signers, a well made and proven decentralized protocol, etc.
tlrobinson 9y ago
Breaking News: Civic Has Reached Its Goal Of Selling $33 Million In Digital Currency Tokens (to be explicit: the problem being solved isn't the "double spend" problem, it's the "make the founders rich with minimal effort" problem)
- bobwaycott 9y ago
  Yeah, that bothered me. As did the mention of press outlets allegedly featuring this group/company, complete with no links to these alleged features. Reads as a total scam-based vaporware. Cool domain, though. Would love to own it.
tchow 9y ago
May be wrong but I think it's made to 'solve' centralised identity
buckminster 9y ago
A blockchain - a secure public ledger with immutable history - does not need to use mining for authentication. When banks, etc. talk about blockchain I think they mean something that is publicly verifiable but only privately updatable.