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Verifiable oracles are extremely hard to create. In fact I think that the creation of verifiable oracles is the single biggest challenge facing science and engi
by hyperion2010 9y ago
Verifiable oracles are extremely hard to create. In fact I think that the creation of verifiable oracles is the single biggest challenge facing science and engineering. Full disclosure, I am quite biased about this since part of my PhD work is to create a language to specify measurement processes.
How do you know whether the numbers you are getting reflect something about the real world? How do you know that your data hasn't been tampered with intentionally or unintentionally?
Data provenance is extremely difficult, and that is only half the problem. The other half of the problem is determining whether you have actually measured what you think you have measured. (Note: there may be some additional halves lurking around as well.)
To give some concrete examples. You find a picture of a CEO groping someone, how do you know whether it is real? Does it matter if you want to short the stock of the company, given that you know that other people will not verify it? What if the photographer's camera automatically pushed a stream of hashes of sensor contents and GPS locations to a source with a verifiable timestamp?
How about the equivalent for a microscope sensor to ensure that the raw data from the sensor was verifiable, and that all transformations of that data needed to be published in a form that would allow anyone to verify that the raw data could be transformed to the final data?
How about a contract that specifies that if a freezer temperature rises above X degrees C for more than 3 minutes then the freezer owner must pay Y dollars to the owners of the contents of the freezer. What does it take to build sensors that the owner of the freezer would trust enough to enter into such a contract?
tl;dr Verifiability of data from oracles is extremely difficult, and much a bigger challenge than building a blockchain that could make use of it. GIGO will be a big stumbling block.
- pmontra 9y agoMaybe I'm just dumb, but is this a bigger problem than it is offchain? Data is forged all the time, we have fake news, people lie, people are jailed with false accusations. If the owner of the fridge in your example eventually discovers that the sensor has been tampered with, s/he can get the money back using the judicial system offchain, maybe reflected in some inchain contract. Answering to my own initial question, the speed of the system could make a difference. An automated way to scam people with an oracle could make it easier to get the money and disappear. Are there any other major differences?
- Zalastax 9y agoThe major difference is that offchain we use contracts verified (and written to be verified) by humans. For a fridge that might mean that you need to send photo evidence and have a mechanic look at the fridge. In case of disagreement a human court will decide the outcome. It's not always going to get it right, but it's a lot harder to scam systematically. For smart contracts to bring the value of machine verified contracts without human intervention we need the data provided to the system to be verified. Without verification that all parties agree on we will always need human intervention in case of a dispute.
- wsy 9y agoIf you anyway assume a legal system to resolve issues, then just go for traditional contracts and money transactions. Why then bother with blockchain-based contracts in the first place?
- csomar 9y agoHow do you recover the money if it flew into the blockchain and changed hands in the anon cryptos.