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You don't need any of the blockchain stuff to support logging in to websites with a public key. That's straightforward with any old public-key cryptography sche

You don't need any of the blockchain stuff to support logging in to websites with a public key. That's straightforward with any old public-key cryptography scheme like PGP. In fact, from what I can tell, most of the "web3 login" implementations are doing little more triggering your wallet extension (e.g. MetaMask) to sign a unique message with your private key to prove you control an Ethereum address. It works well, and I rather like it, but the login part itself could just as easily be an old-fashioned PGP key pair.

vmception 5y ago
correct, PGP had 30 years to get broad user-facing adoption and failed outside of a few paranoid folks on email and setting up git or ssh on a new machine once. blockchains and their addressing namespace have very quickly propelled standardized interfaces for signing key pairs for people that don't even think about it.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Neither has anything remotely mistakable for broad user-facing adoption.
  - vmception 5y ago
    sure, to clarify, I would say if we had a way to count frequency of key pair signing before wallets, and after wallets, you would see a major adoption curve having occurred and continuing. I think that's a good thing because I think key signing is a good thing that needed better adoption and use cases. its ridiculous to think 'hm my users need a browser extension to use my application' but now since millions already do this, its great. thank you, profit motive.
  - swalsh 5y ago
    Metamask has pretty broad adoption. Not quite "my mom" level yet. But it's gone far beyond techies on a fairly large scale, which PGP never really did.
- kkfx 5y ago
  People do not know GNUPG/PGP simply because they are IT-illiterate and those who can teach them, on scale, do profit of such ignorance. Sorry for being rude, but that's is. The chain of trust concept is the simplest and most powerful concept of trust we have in the real world, it fail because most people still have issue understanding the difference between local and remote and understanding why privacy is a value. Blockchain is "popular" just because it's sold as a tool to make money and people who do not know think "let's try it". Nothing more. It's pushed because IT giants (who are probably those who really invented the concept) feel to be giant enough to kick banking out and replace them in a classic EEE move [1] while locking users even more because we need banks mostly for comfort and by law, but we can use cash "by nature" while we can't use cryptos without computers (full of crapware, down to the hw, produced by very few giants at least for their core components) and connections (again owned by few giants). They are sold as free, and they are in theory, in practice they are very hard prisons, worst than those who they say they want to replace. About web3: just try ZeroNet, is a kind of PopcornTime clone, instead of movies it share text, websites. Under the wood just the classic BitTorrent. Fast enough to be used, but certainly not usable by all on scale. The real decentralization we need is web 1.0 with today an IPv6 global for any device and PUBLIC registars who offer domains for free to Citizens JUST mediating eventual overhands, no third party resale allowed... It's not done like we do not push Usenet again just because those who know do want a surveilled and locked IT, not a really free one. [1] and bankers known that well: https://voxeu.org/content/banking-disrupted-financial-intermediation-era-transformational-technology https://voxeu.org/content/banking-disrupted-financial-interm... and also it's more recent evolution https://voxeu.org/article/digitalisation-and-future-banking https://voxeu.org/article/digitalisation-and-future-banking
  - vmception 5y ago
    I don't have any arguments against that, I just don't find the parts about IT-illiterate and blockchains being popular to be controversial. Blockchains standardized an addressing namespace and proliferation of signing tools that are on the path to being ubiquitous. Other niches failed to do that. Speculation drives innovation. Blockchains have tradeoffs, the addressing namespace and signing doesn't actually use the blockchain or any consensus mechanism. (address validation has to be done client side most times! some networks have added consensus level rules to add node level validation).
deleted 5y ago
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birracerveza 5y ago
>You don't need any of the blockchain stuff to support logging in to websites with a public key. Well yes, I wasn't refuting the author's "You don't need a f%ing blockchain", but simply stating that IMO Web3 is already miles better than legacy web, even just for its main authentication system. >That's straightforward with any old public-key cryptography scheme like PGP ... but the login part itself could just as easily be an old-fashioned PGP key pair. This reminds me of HN's famous Dropbox comment.[1] Yeah, wallets are "just" public key cryptography, but it's easy enough for anyone to use and for developers to integrate. PGP is extremely convoluted in comparison, and to this day I have no idea how to sign a message with it without having to open up a guide. With metamask it's just two clicks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- smaudet 5y ago
  That's because GPGP and PGP both are arcane, bad programs. They are standards written in a time when it was somewhat normal to carry pocket protectors. Sendthing is a reasonable, user friendly alternative to Dropbox. There will be a Sendthing for pgp one day...
swalsh 5y ago
This feels like the guy who said dropbox was useless because he has the ability to use rsync. Yeah the technology under Metamask is old, yeah it doesn't have to be connected to a blockchain (but it's damn convienent that it can). But it does it in a really user friendly way that has not caught on at the same level of mass adoption as Metamask has. The great part of Metamask, is there's almost nothing proprietary about it. You could rip all the blockchain stuff out of it, and it would still work. If I wanted the blockchain stuff later, as long as it follows the standard.... I still could. Brave has it already integrated!
- tshaddox 5y ago
  My argument is not "blockchains are useless because public-key cryptography long predates blockchains." My argument is "the existence of public-key cryptography does not imply that blockchains are useful."
  - swalsh 5y ago
    I did not accuse you of saying "blockchains are useless because public-key cryptography long predates blockchains". I accused you of saying old fashioned PGP was user-friendly. It's not. It never caught on beyond tech users because it's too complicated for non-techies. My point was that Metamask has demonstrated the best UX yet to use public-key cryptography for everyday users.

vmception 5y ago

correct, PGP had 30 years to get broad user-facing adoption and failed outside of a few paranoid folks on email and setting up git or ssh on a new machine once. blockchains and their addressing namespace have very quickly propelled standardized interfaces for signing key pairs for people that don't even think about it.

tshaddox 5y ago
Neither has anything remotely mistakable for broad user-facing adoption.
- vmception 5y ago
  sure, to clarify, I would say if we had a way to count frequency of key pair signing before wallets, and after wallets, you would see a major adoption curve having occurred and continuing. I think that's a good thing because I think key signing is a good thing that needed better adoption and use cases. its ridiculous to think 'hm my users need a browser extension to use my application' but now since millions already do this, its great. thank you, profit motive.
- swalsh 5y ago
  Metamask has pretty broad adoption. Not quite "my mom" level yet. But it's gone far beyond techies on a fairly large scale, which PGP never really did.
kkfx 5y ago
People do not know GNUPG/PGP simply because they are IT-illiterate and those who can teach them, on scale, do profit of such ignorance. Sorry for being rude, but that's is. The chain of trust concept is the simplest and most powerful concept of trust we have in the real world, it fail because most people still have issue understanding the difference between local and remote and understanding why privacy is a value. Blockchain is "popular" just because it's sold as a tool to make money and people who do not know think "let's try it". Nothing more. It's pushed because IT giants (who are probably those who really invented the concept) feel to be giant enough to kick banking out and replace them in a classic EEE move [1] while locking users even more because we need banks mostly for comfort and by law, but we can use cash "by nature" while we can't use cryptos without computers (full of crapware, down to the hw, produced by very few giants at least for their core components) and connections (again owned by few giants). They are sold as free, and they are in theory, in practice they are very hard prisons, worst than those who they say they want to replace. About web3: just try ZeroNet, is a kind of PopcornTime clone, instead of movies it share text, websites. Under the wood just the classic BitTorrent. Fast enough to be used, but certainly not usable by all on scale. The real decentralization we need is web 1.0 with today an IPv6 global for any device and PUBLIC registars who offer domains for free to Citizens JUST mediating eventual overhands, no third party resale allowed... It's not done like we do not push Usenet again just because those who know do want a surveilled and locked IT, not a really free one. [1] and bankers known that well: https://voxeu.org/content/banking-disrupted-financial-intermediation-era-transformational-technology https://voxeu.org/content/banking-disrupted-financial-interm... and also it's more recent evolution https://voxeu.org/article/digitalisation-and-future-banking https://voxeu.org/article/digitalisation-and-future-banking
- vmception 5y ago
  I don't have any arguments against that, I just don't find the parts about IT-illiterate and blockchains being popular to be controversial. Blockchains standardized an addressing namespace and proliferation of signing tools that are on the path to being ubiquitous. Other niches failed to do that. Speculation drives innovation. Blockchains have tradeoffs, the addressing namespace and signing doesn't actually use the blockchain or any consensus mechanism. (address validation has to be done client side most times! some networks have added consensus level rules to add node level validation).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

birracerveza 5y ago

>You don't need any of the blockchain stuff to support logging in to websites with a public key. Well yes, I wasn't refuting the author's "You don't need a f%ing blockchain", but simply stating that IMO Web3 is already miles better than legacy web, even just for its main authentication system. >That's straightforward with any old public-key cryptography scheme like PGP ... but the login part itself could just as easily be an old-fashioned PGP key pair. This reminds me of HN's famous Dropbox comment.[1] Yeah, wallets are "just" public key cryptography, but it's easy enough for anyone to use and for developers to integrate. PGP is extremely convoluted in comparison, and to this day I have no idea how to sign a message with it without having to open up a guide. With metamask it's just two clicks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

smaudet 5y ago
That's because GPGP and PGP both are arcane, bad programs. They are standards written in a time when it was somewhat normal to carry pocket protectors. Sendthing is a reasonable, user friendly alternative to Dropbox. There will be a Sendthing for pgp one day...

swalsh 5y ago

This feels like the guy who said dropbox was useless because he has the ability to use rsync. Yeah the technology under Metamask is old, yeah it doesn't have to be connected to a blockchain (but it's damn convienent that it can). But it does it in a really user friendly way that has not caught on at the same level of mass adoption as Metamask has. The great part of Metamask, is there's almost nothing proprietary about it. You could rip all the blockchain stuff out of it, and it would still work. If I wanted the blockchain stuff later, as long as it follows the standard.... I still could. Brave has it already integrated!

tshaddox 5y ago
My argument is not "blockchains are useless because public-key cryptography long predates blockchains." My argument is "the existence of public-key cryptography does not imply that blockchains are useful."
- swalsh 5y ago
  I did not accuse you of saying "blockchains are useless because public-key cryptography long predates blockchains". I accused you of saying old fashioned PGP was user-friendly. It's not. It never caught on beyond tech users because it's too complicated for non-techies. My point was that Metamask has demonstrated the best UX yet to use public-key cryptography for everyday users.