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> The company said all addresses associated with the spread of the malware have been blacklisted How does this work? Can a single entity really just blacklist

> The company said all addresses associated with the spread of the malware have been blacklisted How does this work? Can a single entity really just blacklist certain addresses? How is this decentralized?

theamk 3y ago
Browsers cannot talk to blockchain directly, they need to go through some HTTPS server... And that server can block any request. I am kinda surprised you haven't heard about this already. This has been used in the past to take down NFTs [0] and to make Bitcoins unspendable [1] It's the famous "on chain only" caveat: all the decentralized systems are only decentralized in the ideal world, if nothing except the chain exists. Once practical reality comes in, there are plenty of levers for centralized control. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29227119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29227119 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30224637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30224637
- Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
  to be clear the caveat has a caveat - the centralized control you're talking about is through public (privately hosted) APIs. anyone running a node on the chain can still send and receive whatever they want. unless the majority of the chain chooses to black list addresses, then you have a hard fork because the nodes don't have a consensus on the protocol (open vs black listing).
  - theamk 3y ago
    I don't see how this changes my point? Yes, on the chain you can send and receive any data you want. But if all you want to do is to exchange meaningless data, you don't need a blockchain for that. An in practice, there was no hard fork, and yet Moxie's NFT was "removed" from opensea and from the metamask wallet. Sure, someone with a full client can still see the NFT and _techinically_ all the data is there.. and yet the data is value-less. Would you pay any amount of money for NFT you cannot show off to anyone nor use with any online service? The same goes with bitcoin - sure, the chain will happily process your bitcoin transactions from the mixer and accept your gas fees. So if you are only looking on the chain, it is all fine and decentralized. But if you are actually trying to withdraw the money, then your accounts get blocked. So in practice, this may not be 100% useless, but this is still significantly less useful than "clean" bitcoin. And no hard fork or even community consensus required.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      just launder it differently. the blocking mechanisms cannot discern. forget about mixers. just launch an NFT or ordinals collection, buy it first with your clean KYC’d coin, pump it with your dirty coin, and sell your clean coin to whoever is buying - the audience or your dirty coin address now you just have more clean coin, if you even want govbucks then you can get that on an exchange with no issue now
    - Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
      > But if all you want to do is to exchange meaningless data, you don't need a blockchain for that. in this context it does matter. cloudlfare and any other "web 2" (for lack of a better encompassing term) is censorable. they can use any other HTTP API (or host their own although that could be blocked by a VPS eventually). i agree with the rest of what you're saying. the reality is that it's a decentralized world that inherently requires centralized bridging. the KYC push was the turning point for controlling all the on/off ramps. it's still possible to exchange entirely on chain but the recipient would have to acknowledge that if the sender is black listed then their received holdings are subject to the same control. as long as there is "border control" back to tradfi then there will always be a centralized constraint on the concept. in theory we may see a future where people have enough markets for remaining purely on chain but anything related to government fiat (housing, taxes etc) will by definition remain centralized.
Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
there's a difference between decentralized transactions and centralized APIs for viewing on-chain data. a decentralized blockchain cannot block an address from sending or receiving transactions (without a hard fork - like ethereum did some years ago). however, centralized services (like binancd) run nodes which read and publish on-chain data (transactions and data, like malware, associated with them) through regular HTTP APIs. anyone running an API can choose to not allow access to data associated with certain addresses. it's their API and they can do what they want with it. the same way the youtube (insert platform) API could decide to block queries for certain channels or topics.
shusaku 3y ago
It’s just another block chain scam: a hyped up version of a database of text files.

theamk 3y ago

Browsers cannot talk to blockchain directly, they need to go through some HTTPS server... And that server can block any request. I am kinda surprised you haven't heard about this already. This has been used in the past to take down NFTs [0] and to make Bitcoins unspendable [1] It's the famous "on chain only" caveat: all the decentralized systems are only decentralized in the ideal world, if nothing except the chain exists. Once practical reality comes in, there are plenty of levers for centralized control. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29227119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29227119 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30224637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30224637

Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
to be clear the caveat has a caveat - the centralized control you're talking about is through public (privately hosted) APIs. anyone running a node on the chain can still send and receive whatever they want. unless the majority of the chain chooses to black list addresses, then you have a hard fork because the nodes don't have a consensus on the protocol (open vs black listing).
- theamk 3y ago
  I don't see how this changes my point? Yes, on the chain you can send and receive any data you want. But if all you want to do is to exchange meaningless data, you don't need a blockchain for that. An in practice, there was no hard fork, and yet Moxie's NFT was "removed" from opensea and from the metamask wallet. Sure, someone with a full client can still see the NFT and _techinically_ all the data is there.. and yet the data is value-less. Would you pay any amount of money for NFT you cannot show off to anyone nor use with any online service? The same goes with bitcoin - sure, the chain will happily process your bitcoin transactions from the mixer and accept your gas fees. So if you are only looking on the chain, it is all fine and decentralized. But if you are actually trying to withdraw the money, then your accounts get blocked. So in practice, this may not be 100% useless, but this is still significantly less useful than "clean" bitcoin. And no hard fork or even community consensus required.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    just launder it differently. the blocking mechanisms cannot discern. forget about mixers. just launch an NFT or ordinals collection, buy it first with your clean KYC’d coin, pump it with your dirty coin, and sell your clean coin to whoever is buying - the audience or your dirty coin address now you just have more clean coin, if you even want govbucks then you can get that on an exchange with no issue now
  - Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
    > But if all you want to do is to exchange meaningless data, you don't need a blockchain for that. in this context it does matter. cloudlfare and any other "web 2" (for lack of a better encompassing term) is censorable. they can use any other HTTP API (or host their own although that could be blocked by a VPS eventually). i agree with the rest of what you're saying. the reality is that it's a decentralized world that inherently requires centralized bridging. the KYC push was the turning point for controlling all the on/off ramps. it's still possible to exchange entirely on chain but the recipient would have to acknowledge that if the sender is black listed then their received holdings are subject to the same control. as long as there is "border control" back to tradfi then there will always be a centralized constraint on the concept. in theory we may see a future where people have enough markets for remaining purely on chain but anything related to government fiat (housing, taxes etc) will by definition remain centralized.

Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago

there's a difference between decentralized transactions and centralized APIs for viewing on-chain data. a decentralized blockchain cannot block an address from sending or receiving transactions (without a hard fork - like ethereum did some years ago). however, centralized services (like binancd) run nodes which read and publish on-chain data (transactions and data, like malware, associated with them) through regular HTTP APIs. anyone running an API can choose to not allow access to data associated with certain addresses. it's their API and they can do what they want with it. the same way the youtube (insert platform) API could decide to block queries for certain channels or topics.

shusaku 3y ago

It’s just another block chain scam: a hyped up version of a database of text files.