4 ms·

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.
        robjan 9y ago
        > 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. This is true. In the scenario where the account is compromised you are supposed to revoke the signature.
        ameliaquining 9y ago
        You've got it backwards. The point of Keybase is to replace PGP web of trust with a more human-friendly system based on proof of control of social media accounts (and/or domain names, and/or various other things). The idea is that you tweet a message that's signed with your PGP key, then publicly register the URL of your tweet on the Keybase server. Later, when somebody requests your public key on Keybase, the Keybase client also requests that URL from the Keybase server, then scrapes it, verifies the signature, and tells that user what your Twitter handle is. That way the user knows that the owner of that private key is the same person who owns your Twitter handle. Obviously this isn't secure by itself against a compromise of your Twitter account, but if you do this with multiple social media profiles (and/or domain names, and/or various other things), then the proof of identity becomes stronger. And there are some additional security measures based on timestamping and cross-signing. Documentation: https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/following https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/following
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
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.

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.
        robjan 9y ago
        > 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. This is true. In the scenario where the account is compromised you are supposed to revoke the signature.
      - ameliaquining 9y ago
        You've got it backwards. The point of Keybase is to replace PGP web of trust with a more human-friendly system based on proof of control of social media accounts (and/or domain names, and/or various other things). The idea is that you tweet a message that's signed with your PGP key, then publicly register the URL of your tweet on the Keybase server. Later, when somebody requests your public key on Keybase, the Keybase client also requests that URL from the Keybase server, then scrapes it, verifies the signature, and tells that user what your Twitter handle is. That way the user knows that the owner of that private key is the same person who owns your Twitter handle. Obviously this isn't secure by itself against a compromise of your Twitter account, but if you do this with multiple social media profiles (and/or domain names, and/or various other things), then the proof of identity becomes stronger. And there are some additional security measures based on timestamping and cross-signing. Documentation: https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/following https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/following
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

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.