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You could probably make a simple social network in an hour too. It doesn't make you Facebook. Once the tech matches a market need, though, interesting things ca

You could probably make a simple social network in an hour too. It doesn't make you Facebook. Once the tech matches a market need, though, interesting things can happen.

jf- 8y ago
The problem is no one can think of one. As is often repeated here, there doesn’t seem to be any use case for blockchain that is superior to other technology, other than a cryptocurrency. And even they are rife with problems.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  Well, we do use a blockchain whenever we use Git. Of course, nobody thinks that's cool or revolutionary since that's not sticking it to the man or getting anyone rich. Don't get me wrong, I actually do think the idea of cryptocurrency is really fascinating and that it's worthwhile to try to find new ways to apply blockchains, but as you say, they currently solve a very limited number of problems.
- lawn 8y ago
  I propose voting. You turn your mobile phone into a voting booth. The only thing you need is to verify your identity on your phone. In Sweden we have a national system called BankID which is in use everywhere, so this is solvable. Then you can publish your votes on the blockchain so they're immutable and publicly verifiable. This has some benefits over traditional voting: * You can vote from your phone * Votes can be counted instantly in real time * Votes can be independently verified * You can verify that your vote is counted correctly and included You should also be able to make your identity private using zero knowledge proofs so you can verify your own vote but everyone else can not track any individual vote. Voting via your phone would save huge amounts of time and energy compared to paper voting and it would make holding these votes much easier. It would avoid situations like in the Bush/Gore election where votes were invalid, not counted properly and counted too late. I believe this would be a superior voting scheme if implemented properly and adopted on a national level.
  - jf- 8y ago
    No. I won’t accept any technological innovations when it comes to voting. Votes should be paper and counted by hand. This is the ultimate safeguard against stealing an election - make sure as many pairs of eyes as possible are involved in every part of the process. Some things are important enough to be manual, cumbersome and expensive.
    - lawn 8y ago
      It's sad you won't even consider alternatives to the broken voting process we have today.
      - jf- 8y ago
        It’s sad that you’re a software developer and can’t see the unacceptable level of risk in using tech to vote.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    Lots of shoulds and might in your proposal. To attract my interest you would need to resolve any security issues with other electronic implementations. Prove to me it's as safe or safer than pen & paper and I'll consider it.
    - pdimitar 8y ago
      What's so safe about pen & paper? Here in Eastern Europe, every time somebody ought to win elections but they seem like they don't, you always get two vans full of ballots who support the said candidate. Every time. Everybody knows they are fake ballots and nobody can do anything about it. I would actually think voting through a blockchain with a solid proof function (obviously not mining for 30 minutes because phone batteries aren't very durable) is the much, much more secure scheme. Especially if executed over encrypted channels like TLS. ...Although with the levels of influence some people have, I wouldn't be surprised if they can catch the 4G traffic at least and fake that too (influencing all ISPs would be impossible even for them). But I will leave that exercise to the blockchain technologists, they seem to have invented mostly tamper-proof comms -- or so they claim? Sure there are challenges but the physical voting is IMO well-documented to be very easily corruptable and fake-able. Well, at least outside the so-called "first world countries" it is. You guys can still believe in incorruptible democracy if it makes you feel better.
throwawaymath 8y ago
I don't think those things are comparable. A blockchain is a data structure. A social network is a product involving (many) data structures, including graph-based ones. If you talk about a social network I generally understand what you're talking about. Not so with the term "blockchain." I think part of the parent's point is that, at their core, blockchains are really relatively simple. But because they're data structures and people confuse them with actual products built over blockchains, there is a lot of semantic overloading that goes on. When people refer to blockchains they may be variously referring to distributed consensus, the cryptographic primitives, the proof of work, the Merkle trees, the cryptocurrency or the end product built involving all of these things. These are all components which can be decomposed from the blockchain, which belies a general ignorance and lack of critical engagement with the concept for many advocates. To be clear I'm not saying blockchains don't have viable use cases. Rather I'm saying there is a lot of noise inherent to any discussion about them.
- whytaka 8y ago
  To be fair, a blockchain is the data structure, the mining software, the client wallets, the protocol of broadcasting and collecting transactions, the network of computers to make this work, and the people who use them. Not to mention the various added value innovations to make a particular blockchain attractive and useful to some people.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    > To be fair, a blockchain is the data structure, the mining software, the client wallets, the protocol of broadcasting and collecting transactions, the network of computers to make this work, and the people who use them. No, that's not really correct - and this is exactly what I'm talking about. Saying a blockchain is all of these things is like saying a website is the backend application, the client web browser, the TLS protocol and all the users who use the website. But most of those things aren't the website. When we talk about the architecture of any given web application, we decompose these interactions and distinguish between them. We generally even distinguish between backend, frontend, infrastructure and and middleware resources on the server side. This allows us to productively talk about things with precision. In contrast any discussion involving the term "blockchain" suffers because it means 10 things to nine different people. It's not even an issue of generality. It would probably be fine if the term "blockchain" referred to entire networks and protocols built over blockchain data structures. Then referring to a blockchain would be like referring to "the internet." The real problem is the lack of precision, because in conversation different people are crossing all sorts of layers of abstraction, each to varying degrees of knowledge and expertise. That makes ascertaining the accuracy of claims a murky business for those who aren't substantially well informed.

You could probably make a simple social network in an hour too. It doesn't make you Facebook. Once the tech matches a market need, though, interesting things can happen.

jf- 8y ago

The problem is no one can think of one. As is often repeated here, there doesn’t seem to be any use case for blockchain that is superior to other technology, other than a cryptocurrency. And even they are rife with problems.

ravenstine 8y ago
Well, we do use a blockchain whenever we use Git. Of course, nobody thinks that's cool or revolutionary since that's not sticking it to the man or getting anyone rich. Don't get me wrong, I actually do think the idea of cryptocurrency is really fascinating and that it's worthwhile to try to find new ways to apply blockchains, but as you say, they currently solve a very limited number of problems.
lawn 8y ago
I propose voting. You turn your mobile phone into a voting booth. The only thing you need is to verify your identity on your phone. In Sweden we have a national system called BankID which is in use everywhere, so this is solvable. Then you can publish your votes on the blockchain so they're immutable and publicly verifiable. This has some benefits over traditional voting: * You can vote from your phone * Votes can be counted instantly in real time * Votes can be independently verified * You can verify that your vote is counted correctly and included You should also be able to make your identity private using zero knowledge proofs so you can verify your own vote but everyone else can not track any individual vote. Voting via your phone would save huge amounts of time and energy compared to paper voting and it would make holding these votes much easier. It would avoid situations like in the Bush/Gore election where votes were invalid, not counted properly and counted too late. I believe this would be a superior voting scheme if implemented properly and adopted on a national level.
- jf- 8y ago
  No. I won’t accept any technological innovations when it comes to voting. Votes should be paper and counted by hand. This is the ultimate safeguard against stealing an election - make sure as many pairs of eyes as possible are involved in every part of the process. Some things are important enough to be manual, cumbersome and expensive.
  - lawn 8y ago
    It's sad you won't even consider alternatives to the broken voting process we have today.
    - jf- 8y ago
      It’s sad that you’re a software developer and can’t see the unacceptable level of risk in using tech to vote.
- r00fus 8y ago
  Lots of shoulds and might in your proposal. To attract my interest you would need to resolve any security issues with other electronic implementations. Prove to me it's as safe or safer than pen & paper and I'll consider it.
  - pdimitar 8y ago
    What's so safe about pen & paper? Here in Eastern Europe, every time somebody ought to win elections but they seem like they don't, you always get two vans full of ballots who support the said candidate. Every time. Everybody knows they are fake ballots and nobody can do anything about it. I would actually think voting through a blockchain with a solid proof function (obviously not mining for 30 minutes because phone batteries aren't very durable) is the much, much more secure scheme. Especially if executed over encrypted channels like TLS. ...Although with the levels of influence some people have, I wouldn't be surprised if they can catch the 4G traffic at least and fake that too (influencing all ISPs would be impossible even for them). But I will leave that exercise to the blockchain technologists, they seem to have invented mostly tamper-proof comms -- or so they claim? Sure there are challenges but the physical voting is IMO well-documented to be very easily corruptable and fake-able. Well, at least outside the so-called "first world countries" it is. You guys can still believe in incorruptible democracy if it makes you feel better.

throwawaymath 8y ago

I don't think those things are comparable. A blockchain is a data structure. A social network is a product involving (many) data structures, including graph-based ones. If you talk about a social network I generally understand what you're talking about. Not so with the term "blockchain." I think part of the parent's point is that, at their core, blockchains are really relatively simple. But because they're data structures and people confuse them with actual products built over blockchains, there is a lot of semantic overloading that goes on. When people refer to blockchains they may be variously referring to distributed consensus, the cryptographic primitives, the proof of work, the Merkle trees, the cryptocurrency or the end product built involving all of these things. These are all components which can be decomposed from the blockchain, which belies a general ignorance and lack of critical engagement with the concept for many advocates. To be clear I'm not saying blockchains don't have viable use cases. Rather I'm saying there is a lot of noise inherent to any discussion about them.

whytaka 8y ago
To be fair, a blockchain is the data structure, the mining software, the client wallets, the protocol of broadcasting and collecting transactions, the network of computers to make this work, and the people who use them. Not to mention the various added value innovations to make a particular blockchain attractive and useful to some people.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  > To be fair, a blockchain is the data structure, the mining software, the client wallets, the protocol of broadcasting and collecting transactions, the network of computers to make this work, and the people who use them. No, that's not really correct - and this is exactly what I'm talking about. Saying a blockchain is all of these things is like saying a website is the backend application, the client web browser, the TLS protocol and all the users who use the website. But most of those things aren't the website. When we talk about the architecture of any given web application, we decompose these interactions and distinguish between them. We generally even distinguish between backend, frontend, infrastructure and and middleware resources on the server side. This allows us to productively talk about things with precision. In contrast any discussion involving the term "blockchain" suffers because it means 10 things to nine different people. It's not even an issue of generality. It would probably be fine if the term "blockchain" referred to entire networks and protocols built over blockchain data structures. Then referring to a blockchain would be like referring to "the internet." The real problem is the lack of precision, because in conversation different people are crossing all sorts of layers of abstraction, each to varying degrees of knowledge and expertise. That makes ascertaining the accuracy of claims a murky business for those who aren't substantially well informed.