5 ms·

“The Ethereum community has accidentally solved a major problem of the Internet

21 points by feross 5y ago

throwaway29303 5y ago
Avoiding the Google, or Facebook, or whatever Social Sign On dependency to then adopt an Ethereum SSO dependency doesn't seem like "the ethereum community has accidentally solved a major problem of the Internet." The sign on problem will be ameliorated - not solved - once everyone has access to one (or several) hardware authentication device(s) and systems start implementing better multi-factor authentication schemes.
moralestapia 5y ago
Not something new and not "an accident".
traspler 5y ago
„At first it looks like Social Sign-In fragmentation but it's not. These are competing wallet UIs that all use the same basic Eth account sys“ How does any of this make it easier for me as a user? Competing wallets, competing social logins, all the same at the and with the difference that username/pw is easily portable to another one of my systems. Oh I chose a wallet that doesn‘t have a client on that other platform I use, too bad. Okay I can use a different one, let me just safely transfer my keypairs… It might be better to centralize the identity layer instead of going the OIDC route of having many identity silos but a shared protocol; so your identity is actually a singleton but from a usage perspective I doubt this will solve anything.
- soared 5y ago
  Agreed - this same like the same exact issue as social sign on, but just one layer removed. You still need to use a third party vendor to manage your data and sign in with.
  - ElijahLynn 5y ago
    non-educated Ethereum question here: But the third parties can compete and all manage the same data on the Ethereum block chain right? e.g. I could use any service to login with same data, so if one went defunct, could I just choose another?
- sergiomattei 5y ago
  I think this is a problem that can be solved with a degree of centralization, say a simple website that allows you to manage your identity: everywhere from ENS to SSO in one place. Sure, you could argue that it's going back to the old model, but the underpinnings are still open and the only way the tech will make it to the mainstream is with centralization.
jsilence 5y ago
Really sad that Mozilla Persona did not catch on.
bigphishy 5y ago
This is one of the biggest use cases for "crypto assets" that I can think of. Perhaps the only one, aside from ring of trust and public key distribution.
uncomputation 5y ago
So the problem: managing different accounts across different sites/“services” is annoying. The solution: you pay (crucial point no one is mentioning - no one is going to pay for this) to register a domain which acts as your internet passport/bank account across every site that supports it and to access this account you will need an auto generated private key which will need to be stored somewhere because it’s too long to be memorized, requiring a password manager which is where we are at right now already. Considering Google SSO would also integrate with Google Pay, I’m not quite sure of the unique value prop here besides distributed systems woo that only nerds like us care about. Plus the current gas fees for Ethereum are one of the top complaints about it from end users. Nothing is going to sour the first experience more than seeing “DOMAIN FOR JUST $5 ^*(+ $39.99 shipping and handling)” It almost seems irresponsible from an adoption standpoint to make such bold claims about the tech with such huge issues like this still unsolved.
- nunez 5y ago
  I think the bigger risk with this model is single companies acting as SSO proxies (to simplify the management of all this) and shifting risk from Google/Facebook holding credentials to $insertEntityHere.
cwmma 5y ago
instead of a landrush for names on each service, you get a land rush for ENS names and somebody has already beaten you to the good ones https://app.ens.domains/address/0xAb48EdD90bdF367d326D827758BAcD2460c59d17 https://app.ens.domains/address/0xAb48EdD90bdF367d326D827758...
- noman-land 5y ago
  I easily got my preferred 5 letter domain. There's lots of words already taken but plenty still available.
r0b05 5y ago
What happens if I lose my private key?
truesy 5y ago
Federated login has existed for a while. The main diff w/ Eth is the way it works with its keys. But saying it "solved a major problem" is a real stretch. You could say the same about Okta and the like. Stuff like this has been around since the 90s. The main problem I see w/ Eth login is that it relies on your credentials being on the machine, and makes propagating those to other machines harder for non-tech folks. Whereas the whole user/pass solution is much easier to follow for the common person.
Apofis 5y ago
And then there's https://gazepass.com https://gazepass.com, a Passwordless Login API that uses your mug instead.

21 points by feross 5y ago

Avoiding the Google, or Facebook, or whatever Social Sign On dependency to then adopt an Ethereum SSO dependency doesn't seem like "the ethereum community has accidentally solved a major problem of the Internet." The sign on problem will be ameliorated - not solved - once everyone has access to one (or several) hardware authentication device(s) and systems start implementing better multi-factor authentication schemes.

moralestapia 5y ago

Not something new and not "an accident".

traspler 5y ago

„At first it looks like Social Sign-In fragmentation but it's not. These are competing wallet UIs that all use the same basic Eth account sys“ How does any of this make it easier for me as a user? Competing wallets, competing social logins, all the same at the and with the difference that username/pw is easily portable to another one of my systems. Oh I chose a wallet that doesn‘t have a client on that other platform I use, too bad. Okay I can use a different one, let me just safely transfer my keypairs… It might be better to centralize the identity layer instead of going the OIDC route of having many identity silos but a shared protocol; so your identity is actually a singleton but from a usage perspective I doubt this will solve anything.

soared 5y ago
Agreed - this same like the same exact issue as social sign on, but just one layer removed. You still need to use a third party vendor to manage your data and sign in with.
- ElijahLynn 5y ago
  non-educated Ethereum question here: But the third parties can compete and all manage the same data on the Ethereum block chain right? e.g. I could use any service to login with same data, so if one went defunct, could I just choose another?
sergiomattei 5y ago
I think this is a problem that can be solved with a degree of centralization, say a simple website that allows you to manage your identity: everywhere from ENS to SSO in one place. Sure, you could argue that it's going back to the old model, but the underpinnings are still open and the only way the tech will make it to the mainstream is with centralization.

jsilence 5y ago

Really sad that Mozilla Persona did not catch on.

bigphishy 5y ago

This is one of the biggest use cases for "crypto assets" that I can think of. Perhaps the only one, aside from ring of trust and public key distribution.

uncomputation 5y ago

So the problem: managing different accounts across different sites/“services” is annoying. The solution: you pay (crucial point no one is mentioning - no one is going to pay for this) to register a domain which acts as your internet passport/bank account across every site that supports it and to access this account you will need an auto generated private key which will need to be stored somewhere because it’s too long to be memorized, requiring a password manager which is where we are at right now already. Considering Google SSO would also integrate with Google Pay, I’m not quite sure of the unique value prop here besides distributed systems woo that only nerds like us care about. Plus the current gas fees for Ethereum are one of the top complaints about it from end users. Nothing is going to sour the first experience more than seeing “DOMAIN FOR JUST $5 ^*(+ $39.99 shipping and handling)” It almost seems irresponsible from an adoption standpoint to make such bold claims about the tech with such huge issues like this still unsolved.

nunez 5y ago
I think the bigger risk with this model is single companies acting as SSO proxies (to simplify the management of all this) and shifting risk from Google/Facebook holding credentials to $insertEntityHere.

cwmma 5y ago

instead of a landrush for names on each service, you get a land rush for ENS names and somebody has already beaten you to the good ones https://app.ens.domains/address/0xAb48EdD90bdF367d326D827758BAcD2460c59d17 https://app.ens.domains/address/0xAb48EdD90bdF367d326D827758...

noman-land 5y ago
I easily got my preferred 5 letter domain. There's lots of words already taken but plenty still available.

r0b05 5y ago

What happens if I lose my private key?

truesy 5y ago

Federated login has existed for a while. The main diff w/ Eth is the way it works with its keys. But saying it "solved a major problem" is a real stretch. You could say the same about Okta and the like. Stuff like this has been around since the 90s. The main problem I see w/ Eth login is that it relies on your credentials being on the machine, and makes propagating those to other machines harder for non-tech folks. Whereas the whole user/pass solution is much easier to follow for the common person.

Apofis 5y ago

And then there's https://gazepass.com https://gazepass.com, a Passwordless Login API that uses your mug instead.