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For those genuinely curious about Web3: The new thing is that we can now enforce invariants on state transitions in a decentralized manner for a limited set of
by abiro 5y ago
For those genuinely curious about Web3:
The new thing is that we can now enforce invariants on state transitions in a decentralized manner for a limited set of applications (mostly financial).
With all the capital inflow thanks to the various crypto bubbles there is an insane amount of cryptography and distributed systems research going on to let us build general purpose decentralized databases in the future.
Once we get there, it’ll obviously change all of our assumptions about the internet which are based on companies controlling centralized databases.
- anhner 5y agoExcept, we already have decades of research into general purpose decentralized databases that aren't tied to shitcoins.
- abiro 5y agoI'd be curious to hear about any solutions to enforcing invariants on state transitions in a decentralized manner pre 2008.
- throwmeariver1 5y agoYou are curious but you are not able to search for it? Oracle worked on it in the 90s.
- abiro 5y agoWorked != solved.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwmeariver1 5y agoWorked doesn't imply that they didn't solve it. You can still be CURIOUS and look up the patents :) Just because something is new for you (and lets be clear 14 years and counting isn't new) doesn't mean it's new for everyone.
- abiro 5y ago“Curious” was my courteous way of saying that your and the first commenter’s claims are BS.
- throwmeariver1 5y agoWell, snarky comments like that are forbidden on HN better stay with the I am to gulible to search argument. The patent was filled in 1998 but I am not helping your CURIOUS mind any further. ;0)
- falcolas 5y agoMarkov chains (cryptographic signatures on a linked list of transactions) have been around for much longer than 14 years. There's your "decentralized invariants on state transitions". The "magic" provided by bitcoins was the "proof of work" part - basically trying to create only one "real" trusted branch of the markov chain at any point in time. But that "reality" has been broken multiple times by both the miners and the programers with voluntary and involuntary splits, double spends, etc.
- abiro 5y agoAssuming you mean a Merkle tree (a Markov chain is a statistical concept). A Merkle tree provides an efficient way to compute hashes (not signatures) of data. It provides neither properties that you claim for Markov chains.
- falcolas 5y agoYou're correct - Merkle tree. Words are hard some days. > A Merkle tree provides an efficient way to compute hashes (not signatures) A signature is a hash, in that it is effectively unique for the content. It simply has the additional property of being generated using cryptographic keys, proving that not only is the hashed content what's expected, it was generated using the specified key.
- abiro 5y agoSigning and hashing are specific cryptographic operations with well defined properties. You can’t use them interchangeably if you want to be taken seriously.
- falcolas 5y agoA merkle tree that uses cryptographic signing instead of hashing is still a merkle tree. Though if we really feel it's necessary, we could simply say "a merkle-tree like implementation that uses cryptographic signatures in place of a hash function". Pedantry about the difference between hashes and signatures doesn't change the validity of the structure as a response to the original question.
- qbasic_forever 5y agoIf I have an IP address I can host anything and anyone anywhere on the internet can access it right now. There's no company controlled centralized database I have to get permission from to host an apache server with cat photos for example. Isn't this problem already solved?
- abiro 5y agoThe interesting part is state transitions (mutations). How would your Apache server coordinate mutations to your cat database with other servers when you need to enforce invariants like the maximum number of kittens a cat can have per year?
- qbasic_forever 5y agoI... don't? I'm hosting cat photos for friends to view. There are no invariants. There are no rules. It's purely content I'm posting for other people to consume. It's no different than if I printed photos and mailed them to all the people.
- ohgodplsno 5y agoThis is not a problem anyone has ever had. The entire world is running on either no coordinated mutations, or batched mutations that are spreading over time. If you're found not respecting the mutations that my Apache server has done, the only thing that happens is that you get banned or fined. Cryptobros see the world as absolutely unable of trust, when it's ran for millenia on it.
- foxes 5y ago>The new thing is that we can now enforce invariants on state transitions in a decentralized manner for a limited set of applications (mostly financial). Lol, this has to be ironic.