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At the point where we are talking about a distributed log with cryptographic hashes, it is hard not to introduce the buzzword "blockchain" back in, as that is t

At the point where we are talking about a distributed log with cryptographic hashes, it is hard not to introduce the buzzword "blockchain" back in, as that is the original design. Having global consensus (PoW) is a different matter, but that doesn't mean what you are saying isn't a blockchain. There is a good conversation me and @geofft had the other day, would love your thoughts on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17000401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17000401

wpietri 8y ago
With the important exception that there are no blocks. If you're doing transactions one at a time, it's just a long ledger with checksums. Which are just a timesaving techinque so you don't have to replay log segments and compare with snapshots. In practice, many of these organizations talking about using in-house blockchains have legal trust relationships and systems of laws in common, and they won't only be relying on a transaction log to make sure the record isn't getting fiddled. And often the threat model isn't related to changing the historical ledger anyhow; there is a lot of fraud, embezzlement, and other financial crime that attacks other points in the system. That requires a significant system of financial controls, which will be sufficient to catch ledger tampering as well. Meaning that the checksums become a modest nice-to-have, not a significant anti-fraud technique.
- marknadal 8y ago
  Okay, that is an interesting and fair point. You are saying because these types of verified logs can't control for other variables, they do not represent a "complete" set of the system, and therefore aren't as useful for fraud analysis? Hmm. But this is where I feel like calling a cryptocurrency economic model a "blockchain" is just a silly misappropriation of a word. To me, clearly "blockchain" is not like "capital" or "communes", a blockchain is a cryptographically verified data structure. However, I do hear a lot of people throwing around the word "blockchain" just to reference an economic model, which seems excessive. I like your point though, and well described.
Retric 8y ago
People used DB logs with hashes for verification at least as far back as the 70's. Blockchain on it's own is just a slightly different form of the same thing. So, while Blockchain has nothing directly to do with being distributed, that's just a useful feature but requires proof of work of some kind, or someone can quickly manufacture several blocks.
- marknadal 8y ago
  Right, the only "new" thing is using PoW as an /economic incentive/ because PoW was previously used for plenty of things during the cipherpunk movement as well. Fair point about it being distributed The Proof of Work solves a separate problem, that of Double-Spending. The Proof of Work here isn't arbitrarily to slow the system itself down, just to slow non-canonical histories. But that itself is not the "blockchain" (thus the "how do you define it?" question, I'm curious to hear your take), I'm just playing devil's advocate: A lot of people who weren't around in the 70s are now calling verified logs a "blockchain", now it is a stupid buzzword, but at what point do we consolidate the word for an idea, versus argue there are semantic differences?

wpietri 8y ago

With the important exception that there are no blocks. If you're doing transactions one at a time, it's just a long ledger with checksums. Which are just a timesaving techinque so you don't have to replay log segments and compare with snapshots. In practice, many of these organizations talking about using in-house blockchains have legal trust relationships and systems of laws in common, and they won't only be relying on a transaction log to make sure the record isn't getting fiddled. And often the threat model isn't related to changing the historical ledger anyhow; there is a lot of fraud, embezzlement, and other financial crime that attacks other points in the system. That requires a significant system of financial controls, which will be sufficient to catch ledger tampering as well. Meaning that the checksums become a modest nice-to-have, not a significant anti-fraud technique.

marknadal 8y ago
Okay, that is an interesting and fair point. You are saying because these types of verified logs can't control for other variables, they do not represent a "complete" set of the system, and therefore aren't as useful for fraud analysis? Hmm. But this is where I feel like calling a cryptocurrency economic model a "blockchain" is just a silly misappropriation of a word. To me, clearly "blockchain" is not like "capital" or "communes", a blockchain is a cryptographically verified data structure. However, I do hear a lot of people throwing around the word "blockchain" just to reference an economic model, which seems excessive. I like your point though, and well described.

Retric 8y ago

People used DB logs with hashes for verification at least as far back as the 70's. Blockchain on it's own is just a slightly different form of the same thing. So, while Blockchain has nothing directly to do with being distributed, that's just a useful feature but requires proof of work of some kind, or someone can quickly manufacture several blocks.

marknadal 8y ago
Right, the only "new" thing is using PoW as an /economic incentive/ because PoW was previously used for plenty of things during the cipherpunk movement as well. Fair point about it being distributed The Proof of Work solves a separate problem, that of Double-Spending. The Proof of Work here isn't arbitrarily to slow the system itself down, just to slow non-canonical histories. But that itself is not the "blockchain" (thus the "how do you define it?" question, I'm curious to hear your take), I'm just playing devil's advocate: A lot of people who weren't around in the 70s are now calling verified logs a "blockchain", now it is a stupid buzzword, but at what point do we consolidate the word for an idea, versus argue there are semantic differences?