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Comment by whoknew1122 | Hacker News Reader

So the Director of Operations of ENS Domains says Ethereum has solved an extremely solved problem and one of the cornerstones of that solution is... wait for it... ENS Domains. Gotcha.

I also take issue with:

>Ethereum is giving average ppl computer generated public/private key pairs...

'Average' people aren't into crypto. And the average computer user doesn't know how to use asymmetric keypairs.

Anyone want to try to explain asymmetric keypairs to mother-in-law who's in her 70s and needs help applying Windows patches? I sure don't. And I spend my days in SAML and OAuth world.

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Have you tried using MetaMask or WalletConnect as a sign in tool? It's great. The extension pops up with a message indicating the app is requesting access to account. You click yay or nay. MetaMask already has millions of users and growing rapidly.

Average people didn't know how to use email 30 years ago. Didn't know how to use GPS 20 years ago. Didn't know how to use social media 15 years ago. Didn't know how to hail an Uber 10 years ago (and still thought riding in cars with strangers was dangerous).

I think they can be educated.

You think the masses can be educated about public key cryptography (and operational security around private keys) because they can learn to tweet and hail an Uber?

I guess I would say the high level functions of public key cryptography aren't that hard to grasp. Things like "hey either one of these keys can encrypt something the other one can decrypt and vise versa" is pretty straightforward. I don't think we have to teach the math involved if that's what you're implying.

Protecting the secrets words for a crypto wallet is pretty much the same thing as protecting the strong password for a password manager. If you lose that, then you're out of luck, and those are very popular.

You could also delegate trust in several places in the chain to trusted third parties if you feel the need, that could re-enable access, or shift assets into a new wallet.

> So the Director of Operations of ENS Domains says Ethereum has solved an extremely solved problem and one of the cornerstones of that solution is... wait for it... ENS Domains. Gotcha.

Yep. Note that ENS is an open source self-running protocol, i'm really the dir of operations of True Names LTD, the non-profit that de facto manages. Funds raised from .ETH name registrations/renewals don't even go to TNL but to an Ethereum community multisig (never spent, but plan is to use it for long-term ENS dev funding). I'm thinking about these things precisely because I'm working on the project.

>'Average' people aren't into crypto. They increasingly are

>Anyone want to try to explain asymmetric keypairs to mother-in-law who's in her 70s and needs help applying Windows patches?

You don't have to, just like you don't have to explain to her how TCP/IP works. You just have an account and it works.

And TCP/IP wasn't the only protocol floating around until it was

So another point for not worrying about a mother-in-law in her 70s as various solutions get tried and more stacks get added to the stack

What is this hypothetical “average” person, and if you aren’t one (presumably) then how do you know what they are?

I work in support for AWS's security services, which includes both web auth and encryption services. I deal with plenty of IT professionals every single day that don't have a solid grasp on concepts like "don't attach your private key to a support case".

If IT professionals--who are presumably above average in IT knowledge since it's what pays their bills--don't uniformly understand how to handle asymmetric keys, what hope do most non-professionals have?

Do I know the exact profile of what the average computer user is? No, but I'd bet a paycheck that it doesn't include using crypto or private/public keys.

I agree, but this stuff will be abstracted away. Everyone has a smartphone and the “average” user knows next to zero about how the device itself works.

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