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I love cryptocoins, I think tokens are kinda interesting and I've read a bit about some of the token/blockchain/storage offerings. But I honestly don't see any

I love cryptocoins, I think tokens are kinda interesting and I've read a bit about some of the token/blockchain/storage offerings. But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Tron/Storj/MaidSafe/LBRY/etc. IMO these services could perhaps be a backend for some user-friendly storage broker. But people just don't like the idea of encrypted data where they're the only ones who have the key. "Who do I call if I forget/lose/destroy my passphrase?"

pdpi 8y ago
> But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Tron/Storj/MaidSafe/LBRY/etc. From the outside looking in, that might as well have been "But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb". Just different groups trying to build something based on the same idea. Even if the core concepts are similar, it's very much the case, as always, that execution is everything, and each group is invested in making their own solution win in the market.
- dleslie 8y ago
  > But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb I don't, for Uber and Lyft; I've never heard of Curb. As a user, the two don't distinguish themselves in any way that effects my choice. Execution is nothing if it doesn't meaningfully increase adoption.
  - jtbayly 8y ago
    This is the context of "There's already taxis. What does Uber (or Lyft, not opposed to Lyft) offer?" And the answer is obviously something.
    - kbart 8y ago
      Still from the user perspective I see no difference between Uber/Lyft or taxi - I choose the one which is fastest/cheapest on a given circumstances, so not sure what's your point here.
      - jtbayly 8y ago
        The whole point is that these companies made it possible to know what it was going to cost and made it generally faster and much easier. If you never rode in a cab before those companies existed you have no idea how terrible it was.
        spiralx 8y ago
        > If you never rode in a cab before those companies existed you have no idea how terrible it was. That's very location specific, living in London Uber is no cheaper than minicabs on most journeys, you already could find out the price of a journey beforehand, larger minicab companies already had apps for booking (albeit not as polished), and Uber drivers generally seem to lack the kind of local knowledge of roads that allow local cab drivers to choose faster routes than whatever route their app indicates. The only area Uber has a compelling advantage is journeys of ten miles or more across the city, where not having to return to the area where the journey begun means that they are cheaper than a minicab.
creeble 8y ago
>"Who do I call if I forget/lose/destroy my passphrase?" Highly OT, but the same concern exists for ordinary people with cryptocoins.
jxub 8y ago
Well, it happens that we haven't figured out yet how to kill two birds with one stone with regards to decentralization and user-friendliness. However, the implications of a decentralized internet, like SAFEnet (built in Rust) could be potentially life-changing: https://safenetforum.org/t/where-do-you-see-maidsafe-in-three-years-from-now/12263 https://safenetforum.org/t/where-do-you-see-maidsafe-in-thre.... It might not happen but as we've seen with the CA breach, data is the new oil (money) and the new nuclear fusion (danger), and we should aim to have control of it ourselves treating it as the form of factual power it is.
marknadal 8y ago
The forget/lose/destroy passphrase isn't too hard to solve: - 0server reset is possible through PBKDF2 & AES backup (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR8cx7jB1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR8cx7jB1c) - You can improve the design in the above video with a threshold algorithm, where you only need to get X >= Y of reset tokens correct (Y should be high enough for entropy, and X is enough for your memory to be accurate). - Or the model I most/best prefer, is doing multi-part social-proof backup login. Aka you have 3+ friends (or services, if you don't trust your friends?) who when combined together can unlock a backup of your key. These systems work, and I'm confident you'll see even centralized systems convert to them (we're already seeing Facebook do it) for higher security. Martti 'Sirius' Malmi, Satoshi's 1st contributor to Bitcoin, also has joined our team to work on solving problems around this - like, if you need to trust 3 of your friends, how do you actually have a guarantee that those are* your friends' pubkey, not some imposter account, especially because consumers won't be good at copying/checking pubkeys. He's already got a bunch of code for it working: https://github.com/identifi/identifi-lib https://github.com/identifi/identifi-lib * how the PBKDF2 & AES backup works: http://gun.js.org/explainers/data/security.html http://gun.js.org/explainers/data/security.html (couple videos in, each only 1min long)

pdpi 8y ago

> But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Tron/Storj/MaidSafe/LBRY/etc. From the outside looking in, that might as well have been "But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb". Just different groups trying to build something based on the same idea. Even if the core concepts are similar, it's very much the case, as always, that execution is everything, and each group is invested in making their own solution win in the market.

dleslie 8y ago
> But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb I don't, for Uber and Lyft; I've never heard of Curb. As a user, the two don't distinguish themselves in any way that effects my choice. Execution is nothing if it doesn't meaningfully increase adoption.
- jtbayly 8y ago
  This is the context of "There's already taxis. What does Uber (or Lyft, not opposed to Lyft) offer?" And the answer is obviously something.
  - kbart 8y ago
    Still from the user perspective I see no difference between Uber/Lyft or taxi - I choose the one which is fastest/cheapest on a given circumstances, so not sure what's your point here.
    - jtbayly 8y ago
      The whole point is that these companies made it possible to know what it was going to cost and made it generally faster and much easier. If you never rode in a cab before those companies existed you have no idea how terrible it was.
      - spiralx 8y ago
        > If you never rode in a cab before those companies existed you have no idea how terrible it was. That's very location specific, living in London Uber is no cheaper than minicabs on most journeys, you already could find out the price of a journey beforehand, larger minicab companies already had apps for booking (albeit not as polished), and Uber drivers generally seem to lack the kind of local knowledge of roads that allow local cab drivers to choose faster routes than whatever route their app indicates. The only area Uber has a compelling advantage is journeys of ten miles or more across the city, where not having to return to the area where the journey begun means that they are cheaper than a minicab.

creeble 8y ago

>"Who do I call if I forget/lose/destroy my passphrase?" Highly OT, but the same concern exists for ordinary people with cryptocoins.

jxub 8y ago

Well, it happens that we haven't figured out yet how to kill two birds with one stone with regards to decentralization and user-friendliness. However, the implications of a decentralized internet, like SAFEnet (built in Rust) could be potentially life-changing: https://safenetforum.org/t/where-do-you-see-maidsafe-in-three-years-from-now/12263 https://safenetforum.org/t/where-do-you-see-maidsafe-in-thre.... It might not happen but as we've seen with the CA breach, data is the new oil (money) and the new nuclear fusion (danger), and we should aim to have control of it ourselves treating it as the form of factual power it is.

marknadal 8y ago

The forget/lose/destroy passphrase isn't too hard to solve: - 0server reset is possible through PBKDF2 & AES backup (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR8cx7jB1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR8cx7jB1c) - You can improve the design in the above video with a threshold algorithm, where you only need to get X >= Y of reset tokens correct (Y should be high enough for entropy, and X is enough for your memory to be accurate). - Or the model I most/best prefer, is doing multi-part social-proof backup login. Aka you have 3+ friends (or services, if you don't trust your friends?) who when combined together can unlock a backup of your key. These systems work, and I'm confident you'll see even centralized systems convert to them (we're already seeing Facebook do it) for higher security. Martti 'Sirius' Malmi, Satoshi's 1st contributor to Bitcoin, also has joined our team to work on solving problems around this - like, if you need to trust 3 of your friends, how do you actually have a guarantee that those are* your friends' pubkey, not some imposter account, especially because consumers won't be good at copying/checking pubkeys. He's already got a bunch of code for it working: https://github.com/identifi/identifi-lib https://github.com/identifi/identifi-lib * how the PBKDF2 & AES backup works: http://gun.js.org/explainers/data/security.html http://gun.js.org/explainers/data/security.html (couple videos in, each only 1min long)