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> What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the soft

by darawk 8y ago

> What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the software, the computers and the network. And you need to trust them absolutely, because they’re often single points of failure. This is wrong. You do not need to trust them, because you can verify their correctness yourself. You cannot similarly inspect the rectitude of your local bank manager's moral compass. I find it very odd that someone like Schneier wouldn't recognize this obvious truth. Is there "no reason to trust AES" because you have to trust the implementation? What kind of silly argument is that?

afgkonionio 8y ago
>You do not need to trust them, because you can verify their correctness yourself. I certainly cannot verify their correctness myself, and I'm a professional programmer! I don't touch cryptography with a thirteen-and-a-half foot pole. Most people wouldn't even know where to start. Only a tiny minority has the skills to singlehandedly verify the economic theory, cryptography, and implementation of a cryptocurrency. Pretty much all the time, you're trusting other people to have caught bugs and malicious code for you. Many independent reviewers are far more trustworthy than a normal company (which is why I avoid proprietary software), but that doesn't mean you aren't taking someone else's word that the software works as advertised.
- darawk 8y ago
  Sure, but nobody uses that argument to say that you can't trust AES, RSA or SSL, despite the fact that it applies equally well to them.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Piling on to your comment: even the experts get it wrong. Even if you are the most knowledgeable person in the world, you are going to miss things. Nobody can "verify the correctness", it's not technically possible.
  - darawk 8y ago
    Of course, but that's not the point. The point is that you have the opportunity to check it yourself, even if you choose not to avail yourself of that opportunity. And just by that opportunity being available to people, it keeps people honest.
AgentME 8y ago
I agree with you. There's different types of trust. There's the first usual kind: "I trust my friend to give me back the stuff I let him borrow", "I trust my bank to make it easy for me to use my money the way I want and keep doing this forever". Then there's a separate kind, "I trust that I understand this open system correctly". Cryptocurrencies focus on removing the need for that first kind of trust. The second kind of trust is a different kind of issue that's much more tractable. It's an issue that we can make progress on, by having more people study it, by creating better learning materials, by making the system more understandable, etc. The article really frustrates me because it doesn't draw this distinction at all. To re-state you a little, I feel like one could make a similar article saying that end-to-end encryption is a worthless improvement over Facebook messages because you still have to "trust" something to keep your messages private, which is a false equivalence.

by darawk 8y ago

afgkonionio 8y ago

>You do not need to trust them, because you can verify their correctness yourself. I certainly cannot verify their correctness myself, and I'm a professional programmer! I don't touch cryptography with a thirteen-and-a-half foot pole. Most people wouldn't even know where to start. Only a tiny minority has the skills to singlehandedly verify the economic theory, cryptography, and implementation of a cryptocurrency. Pretty much all the time, you're trusting other people to have caught bugs and malicious code for you. Many independent reviewers are far more trustworthy than a normal company (which is why I avoid proprietary software), but that doesn't mean you aren't taking someone else's word that the software works as advertised.

darawk 8y ago
Sure, but nobody uses that argument to say that you can't trust AES, RSA or SSL, despite the fact that it applies equally well to them.
amanaplanacanal 8y ago
Piling on to your comment: even the experts get it wrong. Even if you are the most knowledgeable person in the world, you are going to miss things. Nobody can "verify the correctness", it's not technically possible.
- darawk 8y ago
  Of course, but that's not the point. The point is that you have the opportunity to check it yourself, even if you choose not to avail yourself of that opportunity. And just by that opportunity being available to people, it keeps people honest.

AgentME 8y ago

I agree with you. There's different types of trust. There's the first usual kind: "I trust my friend to give me back the stuff I let him borrow", "I trust my bank to make it easy for me to use my money the way I want and keep doing this forever". Then there's a separate kind, "I trust that I understand this open system correctly". Cryptocurrencies focus on removing the need for that first kind of trust. The second kind of trust is a different kind of issue that's much more tractable. It's an issue that we can make progress on, by having more people study it, by creating better learning materials, by making the system more understandable, etc. The article really frustrates me because it doesn't draw this distinction at all. To re-state you a little, I feel like one could make a similar article saying that end-to-end encryption is a worthless improvement over Facebook messages because you still have to "trust" something to keep your messages private, which is a false equivalence.