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I haven't taken a look at the protocol itself, but I just want to comment on the foul and bitter taste the word "trustless" leaves in my mouth. It could be the

I haven't taken a look at the protocol itself, but I just want to comment on the foul and bitter taste the word "trustless" leaves in my mouth. It could be the case that this protocol is the bee's knees, but seeing this makes me want to immediately write it off as bullshit. "Trustless" is not a thing that exists in real life, or rather, it only exists in the minds of people who fundamentally misunderstand "trust".

rdbell 6y ago
Not trying to troll here. Genuinely curious... Can you explain this take? From what I understand bitmessage is a p2p/decentralized protocol for e2e encrypted communication and is fully open source. What sort of 3rd party trust is required?
- luizfelberti 6y ago
  The short version would be this: It takes a bastardized definition of "trust" to make this statement true, and it's a definition that is most often seen in the wild when used to "sell" blockchain stuff as having technical capabilities they do not, in fact, possess. It is a dishonest and misleading definition. There are several mechanisms of trust that exist, authorities are just one of them. Reputation is another, so are proofs, and so is consensus (which is the most interesting one for the case at hand). Blockchains are essentially "Paxos, but for a massive peer count, and with some mechanisms that allow it to operate in an adversarial networks", but it is fundamentally still just a consensus algorithm (in Bitcoin's case, one where people "agree" that John Doe has X amount of money). Shifting to P2P essentially just means that: - You will trust a bunch of random people instead of a centralized authority; - You will trust that these random people don't have enough "power" to subvert the protocol; - In this context "power" refers to computational power in the case of PoW and Sybil Attacks, or access to backdoors; - You will trust that the protocol is sound, as well as the implementation of it; There's plenty of trust going around in there, claiming to "do away with trust" is dishonest at best, and fraudulent at worst. To add insult to injury: PoW based peer networks that haven't achieved significant scale can likely be trivially overtaken by an adversarial actors, and making a system P2P tends to open it up to all kinds of forensic network analysis. --- For the long version of the argument I'd recommend this post from Bruce Schneier: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_and_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_an... > Most blockchain enthusiasts have a unnaturally narrow definition of trust. They’re fond of catchphrases like “in code we trust,” “in math we trust,” and “in crypto we trust.” This is trust as verification. But verification isn’t the same as trust. > 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.
atemerev 6y ago
Bitcoin is trustless. OK, “optimized to work in adversarial environment”. You have to trust their encryption, but that’s it (nobody managed to hack the encryption yet, despite immense gains to be obtained immediately). Of course, you have to manage your keys properly, but that’s not about trust, that’s about skills and precautions.

rdbell 6y ago

Not trying to troll here. Genuinely curious... Can you explain this take? From what I understand bitmessage is a p2p/decentralized protocol for e2e encrypted communication and is fully open source. What sort of 3rd party trust is required?

luizfelberti 6y ago
The short version would be this: It takes a bastardized definition of "trust" to make this statement true, and it's a definition that is most often seen in the wild when used to "sell" blockchain stuff as having technical capabilities they do not, in fact, possess. It is a dishonest and misleading definition. There are several mechanisms of trust that exist, authorities are just one of them. Reputation is another, so are proofs, and so is consensus (which is the most interesting one for the case at hand). Blockchains are essentially "Paxos, but for a massive peer count, and with some mechanisms that allow it to operate in an adversarial networks", but it is fundamentally still just a consensus algorithm (in Bitcoin's case, one where people "agree" that John Doe has X amount of money). Shifting to P2P essentially just means that: - You will trust a bunch of random people instead of a centralized authority; - You will trust that these random people don't have enough "power" to subvert the protocol; - In this context "power" refers to computational power in the case of PoW and Sybil Attacks, or access to backdoors; - You will trust that the protocol is sound, as well as the implementation of it; There's plenty of trust going around in there, claiming to "do away with trust" is dishonest at best, and fraudulent at worst. To add insult to injury: PoW based peer networks that haven't achieved significant scale can likely be trivially overtaken by an adversarial actors, and making a system P2P tends to open it up to all kinds of forensic network analysis. --- For the long version of the argument I'd recommend this post from Bruce Schneier: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_and_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_an... > Most blockchain enthusiasts have a unnaturally narrow definition of trust. They’re fond of catchphrases like “in code we trust,” “in math we trust,” and “in crypto we trust.” This is trust as verification. But verification isn’t the same as trust. > 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.

atemerev 6y ago

Bitcoin is trustless. OK, “optimized to work in adversarial environment”. You have to trust their encryption, but that’s it (nobody managed to hack the encryption yet, despite immense gains to be obtained immediately). Of course, you have to manage your keys properly, but that’s not about trust, that’s about skills and precautions.