4 ms·

Permission to an API service maybe, the rest of the examples create more problems than they solve.

k__ 5y ago
How come? Just think about all cases of fake liceses? This could be verified rather easily with an NFT while faking it would be quite hard.
- dkersten 5y ago
  How? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Since drivers licenses are linked to individuals, and cannot be traded, the traffic cop that's checking your license will need to compare it to your government issued ID. Then they look it up to see that its valid and linked to you as a person. How is doing this as an NFT (or other blockchain thing) any better than having a government database they look up? This is a big problem I have with most blockchain tech: yes, it can be built on a blockchain, but it doesn't need it and alternatives tend to be simpler and cheaper. I'm overall pro cryptocurrency and blockchain, but if we want people to still take it seriously in twenty years time, we need the use cases to actually make sense. I don't see how NFT's make sense here, unless I'm missing something.
  - k__ 5y ago
    To be fair, I don't know either what of the possible use-cases are actually good use-cases. But having a globally available, decentralized, and transparent database for some of these "certificats" could be a good thing.
  - yellowapple 5y ago
    > How is doing this as an NFT (or other blockchain thing) any better than having a government database they look up? If it's an out-of-state (or worse: international) ID, then the traffic cop (or, speaking from experience, some clerical worker back at the station) would need to deal with some bespoke interface for some external government database - and thus be at the mercy of that external agency. Such interfaces do exist, but they're clunky and antiquated, and it's pretty difficult to get authorization to connect to it. Even for intrastate lookups, a centralized database entails a bunch of infrastructure that's rarely publicly-accessible. With a (public) blockchain, this becomes a heck of a lot easier and more accessible, since anyone from anywhere can query it with a common and publicly-known interface. Likewise, any agency can post to it without necessarily needing prior authorization and without needing to be at the mercy of other agencies; while there's obviously still a need for agencies to communicate with one another to exchange public keys (and therefore recognize/trust each others' blockchain transactions), that's much less complicated than coordinating a bunch of ad-hoc API connections.
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      You think that a cop is going to download some custom app (that somebody would build… for some reason) so they can have a preferred interface for their id lookup and police departments are going to approve of this and state governments are going to prefer this so much that they’d choose to implement licensing records using a more complex system that they have less control over?
      - yellowapple 5y ago
        > You think that a cop is going to download some custom app (that somebody would build… for some reason) It would more likely be something rolled out by the agency itself. That somebody could accordingly be the agency (preferably just a rebadged and customized version of some FOSS application) and "some reason" would be "not having to duplicate a bunch of effort just to maintain an ID database". > using a more complex system that they have less control over I think you're underestimating the complexity of building 50 separate databases and the connections between them, as well as overestimating the control an agency would have over 49 of those databases. And that's just for interstate lookups, never mind international. Point being: in the grand scheme of things, a blockchain-based approach would be far simpler and offer more control.
        UncleMeat 5y ago
        > It would more likely be something rolled out by the agency itself. I don't know police agencies well at all, but I suspect that if a local police force was deciding between "use the state system" and "use some frontend we built ourselves or needed to license ourselves and has no reason to have any tech support", they are going to choose "use the state system". Or heck, just use a federal system.
    - dkersten 5y ago
      > With a (public) blockchain, this becomes a heck of a lot easier and more accessible Only if you assume that every country will actually collaborate and use the same blockchain. Much more likely, in my opinion, is that each country will have its own incompatible blockchain and the end result won't be any different than what you described. I mean, I get what you're saying and its more likely that an international standard would come into use if no individual country has control over it, but I still think its unlikely.
- detaro 5y ago
  What would you verify with an NFT? "the government created this NFT"? Also known as "a digital signature", if you leave off all the blockchain bits?
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  Why would a state issuing licenses want to use a distributed system to issue licenses? Licenses aren’t tradable so the defi attributes of nfts aren’t useful here.

k__ 5y ago

How come? Just think about all cases of fake liceses? This could be verified rather easily with an NFT while faking it would be quite hard.

dkersten 5y ago
How? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Since drivers licenses are linked to individuals, and cannot be traded, the traffic cop that's checking your license will need to compare it to your government issued ID. Then they look it up to see that its valid and linked to you as a person. How is doing this as an NFT (or other blockchain thing) any better than having a government database they look up? This is a big problem I have with most blockchain tech: yes, it can be built on a blockchain, but it doesn't need it and alternatives tend to be simpler and cheaper. I'm overall pro cryptocurrency and blockchain, but if we want people to still take it seriously in twenty years time, we need the use cases to actually make sense. I don't see how NFT's make sense here, unless I'm missing something.
- k__ 5y ago
  To be fair, I don't know either what of the possible use-cases are actually good use-cases. But having a globally available, decentralized, and transparent database for some of these "certificats" could be a good thing.
- yellowapple 5y ago
  > How is doing this as an NFT (or other blockchain thing) any better than having a government database they look up? If it's an out-of-state (or worse: international) ID, then the traffic cop (or, speaking from experience, some clerical worker back at the station) would need to deal with some bespoke interface for some external government database - and thus be at the mercy of that external agency. Such interfaces do exist, but they're clunky and antiquated, and it's pretty difficult to get authorization to connect to it. Even for intrastate lookups, a centralized database entails a bunch of infrastructure that's rarely publicly-accessible. With a (public) blockchain, this becomes a heck of a lot easier and more accessible, since anyone from anywhere can query it with a common and publicly-known interface. Likewise, any agency can post to it without necessarily needing prior authorization and without needing to be at the mercy of other agencies; while there's obviously still a need for agencies to communicate with one another to exchange public keys (and therefore recognize/trust each others' blockchain transactions), that's much less complicated than coordinating a bunch of ad-hoc API connections.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    You think that a cop is going to download some custom app (that somebody would build… for some reason) so they can have a preferred interface for their id lookup and police departments are going to approve of this and state governments are going to prefer this so much that they’d choose to implement licensing records using a more complex system that they have less control over?
    - yellowapple 5y ago
      > You think that a cop is going to download some custom app (that somebody would build… for some reason) It would more likely be something rolled out by the agency itself. That somebody could accordingly be the agency (preferably just a rebadged and customized version of some FOSS application) and "some reason" would be "not having to duplicate a bunch of effort just to maintain an ID database". > using a more complex system that they have less control over I think you're underestimating the complexity of building 50 separate databases and the connections between them, as well as overestimating the control an agency would have over 49 of those databases. And that's just for interstate lookups, never mind international. Point being: in the grand scheme of things, a blockchain-based approach would be far simpler and offer more control.
      - UncleMeat 5y ago
        > It would more likely be something rolled out by the agency itself. I don't know police agencies well at all, but I suspect that if a local police force was deciding between "use the state system" and "use some frontend we built ourselves or needed to license ourselves and has no reason to have any tech support", they are going to choose "use the state system". Or heck, just use a federal system.
  - dkersten 5y ago
    > With a (public) blockchain, this becomes a heck of a lot easier and more accessible Only if you assume that every country will actually collaborate and use the same blockchain. Much more likely, in my opinion, is that each country will have its own incompatible blockchain and the end result won't be any different than what you described. I mean, I get what you're saying and its more likely that an international standard would come into use if no individual country has control over it, but I still think its unlikely.
detaro 5y ago
What would you verify with an NFT? "the government created this NFT"? Also known as "a digital signature", if you leave off all the blockchain bits?
UncleMeat 5y ago
Why would a state issuing licenses want to use a distributed system to issue licenses? Licenses aren’t tradable so the defi attributes of nfts aren’t useful here.