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How is the blockchain useful here? Why don't they maintain a git repository as a distributed database and issue digital identity cards using X.509?

by rlpb 8y ago

arif_sohaib 8y ago
Part of an undertaking this big is securing funding and political/social support. Being a bit "trendy" helps with those.
- notahacker 8y ago
  This is the most plausible rationale for doing it with blockchains (see also: many other blockchains) The whole system appears to rely on a trusted group certifying the [probable] authenticity of an individual's records and Rohingya refugee status, in which case you might as well let them host it on a well-backed up regular database...
  - sowbug 8y ago
    It's possible, even easy, to insert fake attestations that biometric B corresponds to identity I. But an append-only log has the advantage over other databases that a simple older-record-wins heuristic is likely to prefer genuine identity records. A regular database has no way to make it infeasible to insert fake old records. Sure, you can publish checkpoints. But that doesn't work so well when you're up against a government that wants to erase your entire ethnicity.
    - notahacker 8y ago
      Isn't the sufficiently determined government with the ability to compromise an organization's computers almost as much of a threat to carry out 51% attacks on its private blockchain as to successfully target distributed copies of database checkpoints? (In practice, I think the Myanmar government's strategy would simply be to disregard the database rather than to attack it anyway, on the basis the local prejudice against the Rohingya isn't based around their numbers or individual identities but the claim that they are actually Bangladeshi illegal immigrants lying about Myanmar ancestry and land)
      - sowbug 8y ago
        Yes, it is a threat. That's why I'm not sure why they're not just using Ethereum. Well, I think I know why -- "let's use Ethereum!" isn't a fundable startup idea. But it's too bad, because I have a feeling Myanmar doesn't have even enough compute power to double-spend a single CryptoKitty. And yeah, a government would certainly try to ignore facts it didn't like.
sowbug 8y ago
Who signs the identity certificates? And who are "they" who maintain the repository? And who decides which commits are legitimate? Git is a distributed database only if every copy eventually syncs to tip, and only if everyone can agree what "tip" is. Each of those conditions is hard to meet if the problem statement assumes that malicious actors have write access to the repo and can arbitrarily assert which fork is master.
- rlpb 8y ago
  You have exactly the same problem with "blockchain". Whatever solution you propose for this new blockchain can equally be applied to write a git merge driver for this new git repository. If your solution is "proof of work", then you have the additional problem that there is a large group of people with significant computational power who can take over your new blockchain for the appropriate fee.
  - sowbug 8y ago
    When someone proposes a solution that involves throwing money at a problem, you should be jumping for joy, not asking what happens when someone then throws money at the problem. Such a solution is the economic equivalent of proving that an NP problem is actually a P problem. Blockchain as implemented in Bitcoin takes a thorny sociopolitical problem (how to store monetary value) and turns it into an economic problem (how to calculate SHA-256 moving the smallest number of electrons). As applied to the Rohingya situation, it switches out the political power of whoever is currently dominant and replaces it with monetary power (proof of work). It commoditizes political power. I don't know about you, but I'd take an economic problem of being the group with the most money (== computing power) over an intricate, shifting political problem any day of the week.
    - rlpb 8y ago
      > As applied to the Rohingya situation, it switches out the political power of whoever is currently dominant and replaces it with monetary power (proof of work). My assertion is that using a blockchain, as opposed to existing proven technologies, adds nothing of value. You keep restating the opposite claim, but you have yet to explain how a blockchain adds any value over not using one.

How is the blockchain useful here? Why don't they maintain a git repository as a distributed database and issue digital identity cards using X.509?

by rlpb 8y ago

How is the blockchain useful here? Why don't they maintain a git repository as a distributed database and issue digital identity cards using X.509?

arif_sohaib 8y ago

Part of an undertaking this big is securing funding and political/social support. Being a bit "trendy" helps with those.

notahacker 8y ago
This is the most plausible rationale for doing it with blockchains (see also: many other blockchains) The whole system appears to rely on a trusted group certifying the [probable] authenticity of an individual's records and Rohingya refugee status, in which case you might as well let them host it on a well-backed up regular database...
- sowbug 8y ago
  It's possible, even easy, to insert fake attestations that biometric B corresponds to identity I. But an append-only log has the advantage over other databases that a simple older-record-wins heuristic is likely to prefer genuine identity records. A regular database has no way to make it infeasible to insert fake old records. Sure, you can publish checkpoints. But that doesn't work so well when you're up against a government that wants to erase your entire ethnicity.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    Isn't the sufficiently determined government with the ability to compromise an organization's computers almost as much of a threat to carry out 51% attacks on its private blockchain as to successfully target distributed copies of database checkpoints? (In practice, I think the Myanmar government's strategy would simply be to disregard the database rather than to attack it anyway, on the basis the local prejudice against the Rohingya isn't based around their numbers or individual identities but the claim that they are actually Bangladeshi illegal immigrants lying about Myanmar ancestry and land)
    - sowbug 8y ago
      Yes, it is a threat. That's why I'm not sure why they're not just using Ethereum. Well, I think I know why -- "let's use Ethereum!" isn't a fundable startup idea. But it's too bad, because I have a feeling Myanmar doesn't have even enough compute power to double-spend a single CryptoKitty. And yeah, a government would certainly try to ignore facts it didn't like.

sowbug 8y ago

Who signs the identity certificates? And who are "they" who maintain the repository? And who decides which commits are legitimate? Git is a distributed database only if every copy eventually syncs to tip, and only if everyone can agree what "tip" is. Each of those conditions is hard to meet if the problem statement assumes that malicious actors have write access to the repo and can arbitrarily assert which fork is master.

rlpb 8y ago
You have exactly the same problem with "blockchain". Whatever solution you propose for this new blockchain can equally be applied to write a git merge driver for this new git repository. If your solution is "proof of work", then you have the additional problem that there is a large group of people with significant computational power who can take over your new blockchain for the appropriate fee.
- sowbug 8y ago
  When someone proposes a solution that involves throwing money at a problem, you should be jumping for joy, not asking what happens when someone then throws money at the problem. Such a solution is the economic equivalent of proving that an NP problem is actually a P problem. Blockchain as implemented in Bitcoin takes a thorny sociopolitical problem (how to store monetary value) and turns it into an economic problem (how to calculate SHA-256 moving the smallest number of electrons). As applied to the Rohingya situation, it switches out the political power of whoever is currently dominant and replaces it with monetary power (proof of work). It commoditizes political power. I don't know about you, but I'd take an economic problem of being the group with the most money (== computing power) over an intricate, shifting political problem any day of the week.
  - rlpb 8y ago
    > As applied to the Rohingya situation, it switches out the political power of whoever is currently dominant and replaces it with monetary power (proof of work). My assertion is that using a blockchain, as opposed to existing proven technologies, adds nothing of value. You keep restating the opposite claim, but you have yet to explain how a blockchain adds any value over not using one.