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pilatesfordogs

Does anyone have a link to a simplistic explanation of the block chain and why it seems to be so relevant?

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A bit long, but probably the best explanation you can find out there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE7998qfjgk

It's a buzzword, its a database, but with better marketing behind it.

blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1]

On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks[2]. Though if that many big corps joined, they could achieve a well established, attack-proof consensus relatively fast - - this probably is bad news[3] for Bitcoins' blockchain "ambitions" which is considered by many a solution to de-centralize the "internet" or services depending on third parties.

[0] In computing, the Two Generals Problem, is a thought experiment meant to illustrate the pitfalls and design challenges of attempting to coordinate an action by communicating over an unreliable link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYduOfRLHq0

[2] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_...

EDIT: format, clarification

UPDATE: [3] just saw the linux foundation page, this might actually be a good thing, forgive my ignorance

>blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1]

PoW aims to solve that. Blockchains are just a way to store data in an agreed format with immutability and known ordering.

>On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks

51% attacks are an issue for PoW systems. Private chains don't need PoW so aren't vulnerable to them.

Private chains are also trivially compromised. Much more so than a traditional database

Please share with the class how?

Look into nxt, peercoin, a few of the other pos chains. They all failed due to stake grinding. read the poelstra papers for why pos is untenable

When you know every participant you don't need PoS or PoW you can us RR.

Like I've said elsewhere you are arguing from ignorance and because you've bought into the religion of bitcoin.

Round robin is trivially DOS'd . also, sharing your private finance data with your competitors is not an economic efficiency.

Bitcoin isnt good for very much, it's mostly just useful for value transmission and censorship resistance. You're new to blockchains and don't know that, so you intend to blockchain all the things. Which is a way more extreme view.

How is it trivially DOS'd? You don't need to share all your private data just the data about transfers using the system which isn't going to be particularly sensitive unless you are in a bad way financially and will be worth it to minimize the amount of settlements required of your business.

I'm new to blockchains? I'm pretty sure I'm not.

Look into paxos and raft attacks. You don't know enough about this science to promote it as the cure for what ails you.

As for sharing information - youre right... if you don't use blocks

"RR is trivial to DOS look at these two other schemes and the fact you didn't means you don't know what you're talking about".

I think we're done here. You're not doing anything but saying Nu uh! and calling me a liar.

So you're telling this forum that the innovation here is round robin signing of network state.(not even a decent trusted consensus system like raft) I can't imagine that any halfway competant programmer in here will buy this as anything more than a trivial code construction.

Here's what will happen to your database: it'll drop the blocks and revert to a message passing infrastructure. Which is fine and good - but not in any way related to a blockchain.

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