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I work on OpenBazaar and I'm happy to answer any questions. The basics: It's a fully distributed network where people engage in trade directly with each other
by SamPatt 9y ago
I work on OpenBazaar and I'm happy to answer any questions.
The basics: It's a fully distributed network where people engage in trade directly with each other using cryptocurrency. Because there are no middlemen, there are no fees, there is no centralized data collection, there are no account sign ups, and there is no censorship.
You can view the server (Go) here:
https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-go https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-go
And client here:
https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop
- omarchowdhury 9y agoWhy is the website loading so slow?
- SamPatt 9y agoTop of Hacker News probably doesn't help much! We're in process of changing the website over so it wasn't a great time for a big hug. But the website is mostly a marketing tool and a place to download the installer packages. Which you can find here as well: https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases
- damoonvisuals 9y agoHi Sam, How do you intend to prevent sybil attacks on seller ratings? Since there are no account sign ups and subsequent verifications, it would be theoretically possible to create a large number of accounts with fake reviews.
- SamPatt 9y agoThe honest answer is that we haven't solved the decentralized reputation problem and reviews can't entirely be trusted. There are a few factors that still make reviews somewhat useful though. People can choose to attach their name, and if they are reputable then their review matters more than an anon account. Reviews also can only be left when there is a full record of trade having occurred, and funds have moved (verified on the blockchain), so at the very least an attacker is paying cryptocurrency fees for each false rating. But ultimately there's a lot of work to be done in decentralized reputation. The work of projects like Trust is Risk seems promising (we've supported their efforts): https://github.com/OrfeasLitos/TrustIsRisk https://github.com/OrfeasLitos/TrustIsRisk
- aomix 9y agoWhy isn't a basic version of proof of work a reasonable approximation of that for the time being? Ex. to provide a review you must also provide a value that when postpended to your review gives a hash containing some properties that scales with the number of reviews. This doesn't solve decentralized reputation at all but does prevent review bombing.
- SamPatt 9y agoIf the buyer leaves a review after making a purchase, that's effectively a small proof of work in and of itself, and you can only leave one review per purchase. We haven't seen review bombing attempted yet, but if someone were willing to pay a bunch of fees then I suppose it is possible to do.
- IncRnd 9y ago
- jmeyer2k 9y agoHow do you moderate the search engine? In other words, people post illegal items on your platform; how do you prevent those items from showing up on the various search engines?
- tylersmith 9y agoCurrently we have federated search, like BitTorrent, except we have a public standard[1] for allowing anybody to create a search engine that plugs into the client. Every search engine has their own policies and methods for moderation. It's similar to choosing between Google and DDG in your browser. [1] https://github.com/OpenBazaar/obips/blob/master/obip-0002.md https://github.com/OpenBazaar/obips/blob/master/obip-0002.md
- jjeaff 9y agoSo if you run an open bazaar server, do you have any control over what content gets federated to your node? In the case of BitTorrent, you are only serving up what you have specifically downloaded. So how do you federate the market listings without turning unwitting users into felons?
- tylersmith 9y agoJust like you described for BitTorrent. Your node only downloads and serves things you have explicitly downloaded/viewed. You can purge that data if you want but not yet remove only specific content.
- rapnie 9y agothe way you describe this (i.e. 'viewed') sounds like an opt-out feature, not an explicit opt-in..
- SamPatt 9y agoThis isn't a push network, you only cache and rehost the data that you have requested (by visiting another user's page). And if you visit something you don't want to rehost then you can clear the cache. So yes, users have complete control over what content they are serving.
- zethraeus 9y agoSince there's no censorship, it sounds like if OpenBazaar is successful it will be used to buy and sell illegal things. How do you feel about that? :)
- SamPatt 9y agoIllegality and immorality are different, and - speaking personally - I don't have an issue with the platform used for moral but illegal uses. If it helps people get medicine they need then I'm happy for them. People using the tech for immoral transactions does bother me, but we've seen very little of it, and ultimately I strongly believe the benefits of free trade significantly outweigh the few people who abuse it.
- omginternets 9y ago>ultimately I strongly believe the benefits of free trade significantly outweigh the few people who abuse it. Why?
- SamPatt 9y agoI believe in decentralization and the benefits of anti-fragility. Having only a handful of companies in the world exerting enormous control over online commerce is dangerous. The amount of data they control is staggering, especially when combined with data collected from other centralized platforms (social media, the banking system, government surveillance). I don't like needing to ask permission to use those platforms in order to engage in something as fundamental as commerce. Alternatives need to exist, and OpenBazaar is the alternative to the tightly monitored and controlled online marketplaces. The world needs a protocol and network for trade that no one company or government controls. That's OpenBazaar.
- kennywinker 9y agoYou said you want a network that no one company or government controls, but it sounds to me like what you actually built is a network for trade that no one controls. What about a network that people could control, but not governments or corporations? That's a technical challenge if I ever saw one.
- charlesdm 9y agoAll great, but is there no money to be made? Did you guys build this out of the kindness of your heart?
- SamPatt 9y agoNo money to be made via the protocol itself, true. But we obviously hope that OpenBazaar becomes widely adopted and we then have a large group of people to sell (optional!) services to. We (the company I co-founded, OB1) already have a search engine for the network and a verified moderators service that helps people know who to trust on the network. As the network grows there will be other services to offer.
- grubles 9y agoIt's important to note there are plans for the development company behind OpenBazaar to launch a token[0]. [0]https://www.coindesk.com/token-summit-surprise-openbazaar-launch-layer-two-coin/ https://www.coindesk.com/token-summit-surprise-openbazaar-la...
- tylersmith 9y agoIt's also important to note that distribution plans are not final so there's no reason to believe money will be made from it.
- jjeaff 9y agoHow does the recent FOSTA legislation square with this distributed network? I presume that it works similar to the BitTorrent network where there are nodes and supernodes? I also assume that if someone creates a listing, it gets distributed automatically to many different nodes on the network. So if that's the case, and an illegal sex trafficking listing gets created, how do you ensure that innocent nodes or supernodes on the network don't become liable for the criminal listings that may inevitably popup?
- dannyw 9y agoOpenBazaar is not like BitTorrent but more like Tor hidden services. As a node, you do not host any content that isn’t yours. When you visit a store, you traverse through the network and communicate directly with the owner of the store. So, the legal liability of each store rests with the store.
- tylersmith 9y agoThis is not quite correct. It does actually work a lot like BitTorrent. When a node loads content it begins to serve it it to other users as well. This cache can be purged by the user.
- dexterdog 9y agoBut isn't it fragmented so it is only serving chunks and not the whole thing?
- tylersmith 9y agoYes, data is fragmented and served in chunks just like Bittorrent. You might only serve small chunks of any given piece of data, and as a downloader you may be downloading different chunks from different peers.
- mirimir 9y agoAre the chunks encrypted or obscured? That is, could an adversary with local access to the node determine what object a particular chunk is part of? How about an adversary that can see traffic, but not the node's storage?
- artursapek 9y agoAs someone who works in the cryptocurrency industry, it's refreshing to see someone dedicated to building something actually useful instead of another depressingly transparent get-rich-quick P&D scam. I will download and try OB this week.
- tylersmith 9y agoThanks for the kind words! I hope you enjoy using it.
- SamPatt 9y agoGlad to hear it, please let us know how it goes. There's a feedback button built right into the client so it's very easy to let us hear your feedback!
- lovemenot 9y agoSame here. I created a few service listings this weekend. I really like the technology (can I use the word "platform" here?) and the vision. I wonder about the business side though. Vendors need many buyers and vice versa, yet download and installation presents significant friction. For OB, what might become a kernel of serious market activity as collectibles apparently was for eBay in their early days? I believe you are targeting Crypto trading, right?
- grubles 9y agoIt's interesting to note that the submitted blog post has no mention of the plans to launch a token[0]. [0]https://www.coindesk.com/token-summit-surprise-openbazaar-launch-layer-two-coin/ https://www.coindesk.com/token-summit-surprise-openbazaar-la...
- tylersmith 9y agoWell the submitted blog post is old and predates our curation token plans so it's not really weird. A token will never be required to use the protocol. Even if we tried to make it work that way we'd be forked because it's fundamentally unnecessary for the base protocol.
- hiccuphippo 9y agoHow do buyers make sure sellers are not scamming them?
- SamPatt 9y agoThere is a system for dispute resolution. Both parties agree to use a third party, called a moderator, who will settle the dispute if either party is dissatisfied. The cryptocurrency isn't sent directly to the seller, but it goes into a 2-of-3 multisig account. That requires any two of the parties to release the funds. Most of the time the buyer and seller are happy and release the funds when the transaction is completed, but if either party is unhappy then they open a dispute and the moderator gets involved. He / she then joins with the winning party to move the funds. Moderators are very important in the system and it's important that people choose trustworthy ones, so my company OB1 offers a service where we vet moderators so people know who to choose. https://ob1.io/verified-moderators.html https://ob1.io/verified-moderators.html
- lucasverra 9y agoyou should check on Kleros.io for a real focused startup on that subject
- oldgun 9y agoWhat's the vision and mission of OpenBazaar? Do you think it's going to be significantly scalable and disruptive?
- pbreit 9y agoAny ideas on how much sales volume there is?
- mirimir 9y agoHow is integration with Tor? Can nodes be onion services?
- tylersmith 9y agoYes, when starting in Tor-mode OpenBazaar creates a new hidden service.
- mirimir 9y agoVery cool! It was iffy, the last time I checked. But that was many months ago. So just as with IPFS, there can be OpenBazaar branches in Tor onion space. But those nodes are only accessible for users in Tor-mode, right? Or are there gateways? Edit: https://news.bitcoin.com/openbazaar-2-0-beta-launches-with-tor-offline-stores-bitcoin-cash-and-segwit/ https://news.bitcoin.com/openbazaar-2-0-beta-launches-with-t...
- tylersmith 9y agoClearnet can't see tor but tor can see clearnet.
- louismerlin 9y agoWill you be able to delete a user's data to be gdpr compliant, while still using IPFS ?
- patrickaljord 9y agoPretty sure the goal of a distributed technology like that is to not be affected by laws such as gdrp enforced by centralized governments, same for drug laws etc.
- germanier 9y agoYes, but "We put extra in effort into breaking the law." is among the worst possible things you can say to a court. That one is unable to fulfill their obligations because it's impossible by their own choice of technology is not an excuse. A user of such technology is still affected by laws if they ever get hands on them. This removes the incentive to use the technology apart from those that specifically (or by negligence) are out to break that law. I wouldn't want to attach my name to anything that I know will have major consequences for me personally.
- hapnin 9y ago> I wouldn't want to attach my name to anything that I know will have major consequences for me personally. It's a good thing for all of us that Phil Zimmermann didn't feel that way.
- pjc50 9y agoPhil Zimmermann didn't actually do anything illegal, if we believe that the export of PGP was done by other people.
- hapnin 9y agoHe knew he'd be targeted (and he was), legal or not. It's probably why whoever wrote Bitcoin used a nom de chiffere. http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/timeline/ http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/timeline/
- direengineer 9y agoHi Sam, It's a tangential question- What kind of real-world problems do you envisage being solved by blockchain first? ( Ethereum/ Ipfs/) Also, from an proficient and experienced Software Engineer(with backend /infra side of things), what kind of blockchain-based projects would you find impressive to showcase one's skillset?
- flexie 9y agoHow do you make money if there are no fees?
- deadbunny 9y agoWhy do they need to make money?
- j0hnM1st 9y agoIs it possible to extend and add support for other crypto-currencies ?
- JeremyBanks 9y agoHow do you feel about inevitably facilitating assassinations and fentanyl deaths?
- Xeoncross 9y agoBy that logic there are literately thousands of people in the chain of "facilitators" from the people who write cell phone operating systems to the auto dealership who sells them a car.
- flyingfences 9y agoIn a blog post from a few months ago [1] your organization expressed lament at the (at-the-time) high Bitcoin network fees and the lack of a usable Lightning Network. Now that LN is entering the late stages of beta development and a proper release is imminent, do you have an estimated timeline for BTC LN integration? [1] https://www.openbazaar.org/blog/openbazaar-bitcoin-fees/ https://www.openbazaar.org/blog/openbazaar-bitcoin-fees/