I too am in IT and work with cryptography quite a bit. I feel like this article was fine. Can you elaborate as to what you found so terrible? The real problem in the example is key ownership is not as trust worthy as the blockchain they’re associated with (ignoring 51%).
The real problem with crypto (small cryptos and bitcoin) is a risk of a 51% attack as you pointed out. The top four bitcoin miners are all in China and make up 70-80% of all mining. If CCP seized that they can abuse it quite a bit with a 51% attack, potentially killing it altogether or targeted attacks.
Anyone running a full node (not a miner) is involved in consensus afaik - so it’s not quite just up to the miners, but it’s definitely a risk. It also happens to be the most overlooked issues by people who preach “BITCOIN FOR XYZ”.
Well, maybe you don’t understand blockchain, so lets draw some parallels to popular tech. Look at any distributed filesystem (hdfs), database (ETCD), kv store et al (basically anything that implements RAFT or similar). These systems all require quorum, some form of replication for their data, and create consensus. Now imagine a similar system that also codifies the transactions to this system as well AND it signs and validates all actions cryptographically and stores these transactions in the database as well. That’s a typical blockchain ledger, and it seems like a great way to track ownership of “things”.
BUT it doesn’t solve account security.
The article’s final point misses the mark. Humans will need to enforce the values from the tech onto the physical world if they wanted to go that way.
Edit: Included detaisl about storing the cryptographically signed transactions in teh database itself.
No I’m quite familiar with the blockchain. The article just seems to me to state the obvious, something that Bitcoin was never purported to solve, and then say that makes it useless.
“Uh” (seriously, what kid of douche types this?), you said it was meaningless, friend. It was far from meaningless. I guess it’s my fault for taking you literally in a technical conversation, right?
The author could stand to do some more thinking on this. It's not that he's incorrect, he just doesn't understand the utility of Bitcoin in spite of his point.
Think of this scenario. The French government has a top notch security protocol in place to secure the private key to the ownership of the Mona Lisa. But we have a change of government and some high ranking government official gets corrupted. They have access to the keys and he uses them to transfer the Mona Lisa to one of his rich buddies Joe Shmoe.
What happens now? According to the blockchain Joe Shmoe is the rightful owner. Can he just enforce that ownership against the French government and force the Louvre to move the Mona Lisa to his beach house in St. Tropez? Or can the French government force him to reverse the transaction. But what if he is smart enough to destroy the private key? Transferring ownership at this point becomes virtually impossible.
It would absolutely be true for a completely virtual item, but he fails to realize that because the artwork is physical, all you need to do is generate a new token for it. The old one was destroyed, so there is no conflict here. You must keep in mind that the token is just a virtual representation or reference to the actual thing. The important part in such a system would be to ensure there are never multiple tokens pointing to the same physical resource existing at the same time.
This is an extreme example and I think no one would argue for a Big Bang introduction of an art blockchain. But it highlights the core problem of using blockchain for the real world. For every transfer of ownership you have 2 operations. These have to be in sync in all time to work properly. In Computer Science this is called an atomic transaction. You either execute all of the operations or none of them. This is already hard in a single database, it is near impossible within 2 systems and is essentially impossible in the real world.
This is dumb. Yes the virtual world is not the same as the real world. And? You know a written ledger or database doesn't actually map 1:1 to what occurs in the real world either right? Are those useless too?
In reality the source of truth would most likely be the courts of the world. And we already have that. Unless the French state is OK with giving up ownership of the Mona Lisa (which would most certainly go through a complicated legal process), it will never change owners. And if it does, this is what we call theft and the French state has a legal mandate to take ownership back.
All in all: when your source of truth is the legal system, there is absolutely no point for a blockchain and you might as well record ownership in a database.
Yeah I understand him. He's basically saying the real world is messy and a blockchain doesn't change that. Well obviously. And yes state officials and judges and whoever can be corrupted. That's EXACTLY why you want a blockchain. His argument is essentially, "Well humans are involved, humans are corruptible, therefore the blockchain is useless". Sure, the blockchain can't fix that. What it can do though, is demonstrably prove the chain of ownership. So while you cannot stop a judge or political official from being corrupt, you can at least have OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE CORRUPTION. And if you are dealing with something purely virtual, like cryptocurrency itself, then no one other than the owner of the keys can control the resource. So forget judges and courts. They can send you to prison, but they can't take your property without you giving them the key.
His argument is like saying, "Well the judge can rule however he wants, so evidence of a crime and having a trial with objective procedures is pointless". You can't fix corruption through physical means, but being able to identify it is good regardless, and trying to minimize it by adhering to objective rules is basically the core foundation of our society.
If you think this stuff is useless and doesn't work, then we may as well go back to might makes right, and let whoever can kill the most have all the power. Does the author realize we moved towards politics and a legal system to get away from that mess? I mean the legal system doesn't solve corruption either, so I guess it's just as useless as the blockchain and we should throw it out the window lol. I don't blame him though, most people don't have the time or inclination to deeply consider these issues.
Let me state that again for emphasis: the author's argument can be used to justify getting rid of our own legal system, the scientific method, etc., because there is no objective principle, process, or concept that maps to the real world and can eliminate human corruption.
You miss the point. He's not trying to say Bitcoin is useless / has no utility. He's not saying the real world is messy.
He's saying that people are confused what "source of truth" means when it comes to blockchain.
Someone can steal the digital keys of ownership (crypto hashes) for a physical item like an art piece, but that doesn't mean the owner automatically changes to where the thief now owns the art piece, and it would be upheld legally in a court "because muh blockchain decentralized proof of truth SAYS so". That's dumb. The courts will hash it out, which is a centralized process producing a final record or report in a "Court database" which creates an authoritative, overriding source of truth as to the real ownership.
It doesn't matter if the entire blockchain world agrees that Thief_Hacker_X owns it. The court has the final say, and their decision is centralized in a court database.
You miss the point. He's not trying to say Bitcoin is useless / has no utility. He's not saying the real world is messy.
That’s exactly what he is saying. That the blockchain does not map 1:1 to the real world.
And you repeat that here
It doesn't matter if the entire blockchain world agrees that Thief_Hacker_X owns it. The court has the final say, and their decision is centralized in a court database.
And the implication is what? That the blockchain adds no value over a centralized database or court system because they are going to have the final say anyway.
Again, what he fails to realize is that you can take his exact same argument and apply it to the legal system, or centralized databases.
How are they an improvement upon just having a man go with his opinion on what should be done? Why formalize the process or result in a database or legal procedure if someone along the chain can potentially be corrupt and establish a different truth than what those systems would provide?
In other words, why bother trying to use objective methods to establish truth when a human can override them in the real world by force?
He is NOT saying Bitcoin is useless. He states in the first sentence that Bitcoin is full of potential use cases. Then he exercises some critical thinking to determine how "ownership" is likely not one of them.
He's criticizing blockchain for it's touted ability to facilitate the Transfer of ownership of something. This is what happens in a supply chain, ownership of goods changes hands from the manufacturer to the shipper to the retailer.
There are people of the opinion that blockchain makes this transfer of ownership (of the goods) completely transparent and truthful. That is not the case.
In the article, he's talking about transferring a physical item (like art) by using a transaction on the blockchain. He gives an example why this doesn't offer truth of ownership. It offers truth of the transaction.
Blockchain enthusiasts would love the blockchain to be the source of truth for so many things but this is exactly where you run in silly problems as I described before (essentially the French state having to give up ownership of the Mona Lisa because the blockchain says so).
The mistake is in thinking blockchain is a "source of truth". You have to add context. What is it a source of truth for? Transaction validity.
He is NOT saying Bitcoin is useless. He states in the first sentence that Bitcoin is full of potential use cases. Then he exercises some critical thinking to determine how "ownership" is likely not one of them.
No, he said "supposedly". If you read the article that he links to, it is actually a rebuttal of using Bitcoin to handle the problems of logistics. If you see where he wrote something to the contrary, please link it. As far as I can tell, he is saying Bitcoin does not solve any problems.
Then he exercises some critical thinking to determine how "ownership" is likely not one of them.
Establishing ownership is the sole purpose of the blockchain.
There are people of the opinion that blockchain makes this transfer of ownership (of the goods) completely transparent and truthful. That is not the case.
In the article, he's talking about transferring a physical item (like art) by using a transaction on the blockchain. He gives an example why this doesn't offer truth of ownership. It offers truth of the transaction.
This is just playing word games. How does the court or a centralized database offer truth of ownership?
The mistake is in thinking blockchain is a "source of truth". You have to add context. What is it a source of truth for? Transaction validity.
And what is the purpose of validating transactions? Just to consume CPU cycles? No, it's to establish ownership.
Seems like you got it all figured out champ. We should delete this whole post, and ban that dumb author who hates Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin good, and author doesn't think good.
The author is making a logical error in his thinking, which results in a poor grasp of the technology and a poor quality article as a result.
There is no such thing as a “source of truth” in the real world, other than God. Tools like ledgers and databases just help us humans organize information to minimize errors, with the blockchain being the solution to a distributed decentralized ledger that does not require a central authority. (minimizing corruption of more than one kind)
That does not mean it will replace a central authority. A human is always going to be involved in the process. No technology can change that.
I thought it was a great read, what don't you like about the article?
I too am in IT and work with cryptography quite a bit. I feel like this article was fine. Can you elaborate as to what you found so terrible? The real problem in the example is key ownership is not as trust worthy as the blockchain they’re associated with (ignoring 51%).
The real problem with crypto (small cryptos and bitcoin) is a risk of a 51% attack as you pointed out. The top four bitcoin miners are all in China and make up 70-80% of all mining. If CCP seized that they can abuse it quite a bit with a 51% attack, potentially killing it altogether or targeted attacks.
Anyone running a full node (not a miner) is involved in consensus afaik - so it’s not quite just up to the miners, but it’s definitely a risk. It also happens to be the most overlooked issues by people who preach “BITCOIN FOR XYZ”.
I’m a programmer and I thought it was meaningless. What was your takeaway from the article?
Well, maybe you don’t understand blockchain, so lets draw some parallels to popular tech. Look at any distributed filesystem (hdfs), database (ETCD), kv store et al (basically anything that implements RAFT or similar). These systems all require quorum, some form of replication for their data, and create consensus. Now imagine a similar system that also codifies the transactions to this system as well AND it signs and validates all actions cryptographically and stores these transactions in the database as well. That’s a typical blockchain ledger, and it seems like a great way to track ownership of “things”.
BUT it doesn’t solve account security.
The article’s final point misses the mark. Humans will need to enforce the values from the tech onto the physical world if they wanted to go that way.
Edit: Included detaisl about storing the cryptographically signed transactions in teh database itself.
No I’m quite familiar with the blockchain. The article just seems to me to state the obvious, something that Bitcoin was never purported to solve, and then say that makes it useless.
Cool. You could have just said that in the first place, Mr. Programmer.
Uh, I did. That's why I was asking what you got from it.
“Uh” (seriously, what kid of douche types this?), you said it was meaningless, friend. It was far from meaningless. I guess it’s my fault for taking you literally in a technical conversation, right?
The author could stand to do some more thinking on this. It's not that he's incorrect, he just doesn't understand the utility of Bitcoin in spite of his point.
It would absolutely be true for a completely virtual item, but he fails to realize that because the artwork is physical, all you need to do is generate a new token for it. The old one was destroyed, so there is no conflict here. You must keep in mind that the token is just a virtual representation or reference to the actual thing. The important part in such a system would be to ensure there are never multiple tokens pointing to the same physical resource existing at the same time.
This is dumb. Yes the virtual world is not the same as the real world. And? You know a written ledger or database doesn't actually map 1:1 to what occurs in the real world either right? Are those useless too?
Yeah I understand him. He's basically saying the real world is messy and a blockchain doesn't change that. Well obviously. And yes state officials and judges and whoever can be corrupted. That's EXACTLY why you want a blockchain. His argument is essentially, "Well humans are involved, humans are corruptible, therefore the blockchain is useless". Sure, the blockchain can't fix that. What it can do though, is demonstrably prove the chain of ownership. So while you cannot stop a judge or political official from being corrupt, you can at least have OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE CORRUPTION. And if you are dealing with something purely virtual, like cryptocurrency itself, then no one other than the owner of the keys can control the resource. So forget judges and courts. They can send you to prison, but they can't take your property without you giving them the key.
His argument is like saying, "Well the judge can rule however he wants, so evidence of a crime and having a trial with objective procedures is pointless". You can't fix corruption through physical means, but being able to identify it is good regardless, and trying to minimize it by adhering to objective rules is basically the core foundation of our society.
If you think this stuff is useless and doesn't work, then we may as well go back to might makes right, and let whoever can kill the most have all the power. Does the author realize we moved towards politics and a legal system to get away from that mess? I mean the legal system doesn't solve corruption either, so I guess it's just as useless as the blockchain and we should throw it out the window lol. I don't blame him though, most people don't have the time or inclination to deeply consider these issues.
Let me state that again for emphasis: the author's argument can be used to justify getting rid of our own legal system, the scientific method, etc., because there is no objective principle, process, or concept that maps to the real world and can eliminate human corruption.
You miss the point. He's not trying to say Bitcoin is useless / has no utility. He's not saying the real world is messy.
He's saying that people are confused what "source of truth" means when it comes to blockchain.
Someone can steal the digital keys of ownership (crypto hashes) for a physical item like an art piece, but that doesn't mean the owner automatically changes to where the thief now owns the art piece, and it would be upheld legally in a court "because muh blockchain decentralized proof of truth SAYS so". That's dumb. The courts will hash it out, which is a centralized process producing a final record or report in a "Court database" which creates an authoritative, overriding source of truth as to the real ownership.
It doesn't matter if the entire blockchain world agrees that Thief_Hacker_X owns it. The court has the final say, and their decision is centralized in a court database.
That’s exactly what he is saying. That the blockchain does not map 1:1 to the real world.
And you repeat that here
And the implication is what? That the blockchain adds no value over a centralized database or court system because they are going to have the final say anyway.
Again, what he fails to realize is that you can take his exact same argument and apply it to the legal system, or centralized databases.
How are they an improvement upon just having a man go with his opinion on what should be done? Why formalize the process or result in a database or legal procedure if someone along the chain can potentially be corrupt and establish a different truth than what those systems would provide?
In other words, why bother trying to use objective methods to establish truth when a human can override them in the real world by force?
He is NOT saying Bitcoin is useless. He states in the first sentence that Bitcoin is full of potential use cases. Then he exercises some critical thinking to determine how "ownership" is likely not one of them.
He's criticizing blockchain for it's touted ability to facilitate the Transfer of ownership of something. This is what happens in a supply chain, ownership of goods changes hands from the manufacturer to the shipper to the retailer.
There are people of the opinion that blockchain makes this transfer of ownership (of the goods) completely transparent and truthful. That is not the case.
In the article, he's talking about transferring a physical item (like art) by using a transaction on the blockchain. He gives an example why this doesn't offer truth of ownership. It offers truth of the transaction.
The mistake is in thinking blockchain is a "source of truth". You have to add context. What is it a source of truth for? Transaction validity.
No, he said "supposedly". If you read the article that he links to, it is actually a rebuttal of using Bitcoin to handle the problems of logistics. If you see where he wrote something to the contrary, please link it. As far as I can tell, he is saying Bitcoin does not solve any problems.
Establishing ownership is the sole purpose of the blockchain.
This is just playing word games. How does the court or a centralized database offer truth of ownership?
And what is the purpose of validating transactions? Just to consume CPU cycles? No, it's to establish ownership.
Seems like you got it all figured out champ. We should delete this whole post, and ban that dumb author who hates Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin good, and author doesn't think good.
The author is making a logical error in his thinking, which results in a poor grasp of the technology and a poor quality article as a result.
There is no such thing as a “source of truth” in the real world, other than God. Tools like ledgers and databases just help us humans organize information to minimize errors, with the blockchain being the solution to a distributed decentralized ledger that does not require a central authority. (minimizing corruption of more than one kind)
That does not mean it will replace a central authority. A human is always going to be involved in the process. No technology can change that.
We need to just get rid of the entire internet.
Ledgers and databases too. We can just go back to trusting Ted. He's a good fellow, would never cheat me.
This article is a bunch of bullshit. The writer doesn't know a fucking thing he talks about. Just another pointless internet clickbait article.
Explain your reasoning sir.