A big part of your post is how these protocols don’t even run or survive network conditions. In the centralized model, one of my favorites was FoundationDB. The testing section shows their development process was so rigorous that the guy who runs Jepsen testing on databases didn’t bother testing it since he’d be throwing less at it. In this recent presentation, one of our Lobsters applies similarly rigorous approaches in their work with memory-safe language on top of it.
In comparison, these math coins often look like they’re not even trying. The activities I described found lots of failures in distributed software with benign components. Many more can happen when some parties are malicious intelligently crafting bad inputs. What’s their excuse for decentralized stuff not being as rigorous by default as centralized stuff like I cited? I doubt they’ll have a good one.
When these huge and glaring problems are raised, most of the counterargument is “number go up”. Certainly that’s what the IOTA cult comes out with, in between the harassment and legal threats.
The big promise is doing the Bitcoin magical flying unicorn pony tricks without wasting an Ireland of electricity. This feels to me like there’s gotta be some sort of no free lunch effect in play, though I wouldn’t claim to be able to prove it.
At least a non-zero number of these guys are more or less sane. They might be wrong or do something dumb, but at least it’ll be an informed wrong.
I was in polite mode for this post, but mathcoin white papers should mostly be read as mad scientist villain monologues. “They said I was mad - but I’LL SHOW THEM ALL!!” edit: actually, I’ll just go add that!
For RaiBlocks, the trade-off is that it’s so decentralized that you can’t have a full view of the state of the universe.
Each user has its own blockchain, so you only need blockchains related to transactions that interest you. (Transactions are movements between blockchain, starting with a genesis chain that everyone knows about)
Basically the system works in partial information, but that means that the system will only be partially visibile depending on where you stand
Empirical fault tolerance testing (as used for simpler and totally solved problems like in your examples) is insufficient for analyzing malicious party actions. Unfortunately, though, no one has come up with a clean mathematical framework for capturing all the intricacies of the economics of the system, so the math is still pretty ugly.
Empirical testing in that model is just about seeing if any inputs can throw off specified behavior. One tool among many but pretty good at finding problems.
In the traditional models, the builders ensure actions are traceable and revocable with boundary conditions or sanity checks built into the system. Then, they monitor for abuse. They block or reverse what they detect. This system works pretty well in practice. Pieces of the underlying methods have been formally verified as well. The math might be ugly for blockchain-based methods but not for the core of traditional models with decentralized checking and incident response. It’s why I favor designing around the latter.
No amount of empirical testing is convincing if the mathematical model is not sound. In central authority systems the math is quite straightforward and the testing reveals implementation inefficiencies and bugs. In new and complex trustless systems the math is still pretty suspect, so care and effort need to be spent there instead. This is why the two look very different at the moment.
Again, Im saying empirical testing can find problems in protocols or other software, not that it should replace math. Also, that it finds problems the math might not find. It can also be used to test math or its instantiation, though.
Cryptocurrencies are certainly a… textured subject of economics. But to answer the author’s question of, “How does a non-mathematician judge these things?”, well, for starters, perhaps by engaging reputable sources. Such as, say, one of those mathematicians, or perhaps an economist qualified to navigate the subject matter. The author, however, does not appear to be one of either. How did he judge?
It reminds me of Mike Hearn, famous for spreading disinformation to socially attack Bitcoin.
I’m always curious about people who spread disinfo while censoring comments to their blogs that correct or disagree with them, and repeating ad nauseam, arguments that have been proven false/misleading multiple times. It seems you create problems in other communities too, whether it’s Wikipedia or RationalWiki.
For the benefit of anybody who skims the parent comment without checking, I’d like to mention the following:
It doesn’t link to Wikipedia or RationalWiki, but to wikipediareview.com and matthewhopkinsnews.com.
Following the links and allegations on those two pages does not turn up any actual misdeeds on either Wikipedia or RationalWiki.
@itistoday: have you noticed that you act very different on Bitcoin posts? Here’s what it looks like from the outside: most of your comments are helpful and courteous, a credit to any forum. But when you have commented on posts that criticise BitCoin, your comments seemed upset (and I don’t mean passionate, I mean hostile); you cited tweets and rants (above); and one comment even came across as mistrusting anyone who questions you. You don’t have to reply to me, but is a different attitude on Bitcoin something you’ve noticed yourself?
Following the links and allegations on those two pages does not turn up any actual misdeeds on either Wikipedia or RationalWiki.
OK, what is this then?
Gerard also had his CheckUser and Oversight flags revoked on Wikipedia. According to the Register, after legal threats, a deal was brokered – Wikipedia removed their critical ruling explaining their decision on advice from their lawyer (who conceded it might appear procedurally and in some respects factually unfair) but in return Gerard agreed to resign the user rights. A full Register article is here (archive here).
And how is libel not a misdeed?
Mr Gerard has not responded nor denied any of the asserted facts. Gerard was offered an extension of the deadline if he had any concerns. It was explained that UK law requires libel claimants to mitigate losses (See Mawdsley v Guardian Newspapers Ltd [2002] EWHC 1780 (QB)). Being offered the facts before publication (and an extension to take advice), a subject has the opportunity to 100% mitigate losses. Mr Gerard is a press officer and is familiar with his rights.
Re:
You don’t have to reply to me, but is a different attitude on Bitcoin something you’ve noticed yourself?
Of course. Most of the other subjects I engage on do not involve banks and/or intelligence agencies spending millions/billions on hiring troll farms and saboteurs to spread disinfo or in some other way sabotage the work in question. 😂
I think that would miss the point of having an online discussion community. If someone were spreading disinfo (as David is gallantly doing) in a subject area I’m not familiar with, I would very much appreciate commenters who pointed that out.
Thanks for your contribution! Anything to discuss on the topic at hand? You have the knowledge to bring to the subject.
while censoring comments to their blogs that correct or disagree with them
No, I’m still not letting your random abusive comments through, sorry. (He tries to comment on my blog like he comments here.) There are plenty of other places for you to comment.
Yeah, how about you fix this sentence and the blog post it links to:
Proof-of-work is a horrifying disaster.
You keep saying that, and people keep telling you why you’re completely mistaken, and you just ignore them. So, you are knowingly, deliberately misleading people.
Your previous attempt to show I was wrong, and Proof-of-Work was good actually, was to link some tweets and to be abusive when people told you that wasn’t really much of an argument.
Anything to say about this exciting new wave of not-a-blockchain coins? Just to get back onto the current topic, rather than some other topic, ad hominems or random abuse.
In the link you just posted, are links to technical arguments explaining why “proof-of-work is wasteful”, is nonsense. It’s not like you are the first person to say this, so instead of copy/pasting a whole bunch of text, I linked you to it.
That you’re playing dumb proves again you’re here to troll.
You’re taking a feature of a currency — its ability to transparently and easily measure how much energy it’s using for its security — something no other global currency-system has been able to provide — and are pretending this feature is a bad thing. That’s your entire, bullshit argument. It’s nonsensical to the extreme.
Anything to say about this exciting new wave of not-a-blockchain coins?
One thing at a time! There’s no sense in talking with someone who can’t demonstrate they’re capable of honest conversation. Let’s wrap up that “proof-of-work is wasteful/bad” nonsense before wasting more time.
Contributing ones own work is not against the rules for this site. In fact there’s a checkbox indicating whether one is the author of a submitted link.
It’s up to the community to decide whether the link is on topic or not.
A big part of your post is how these protocols don’t even run or survive network conditions. In the centralized model, one of my favorites was FoundationDB. The testing section shows their development process was so rigorous that the guy who runs Jepsen testing on databases didn’t bother testing it since he’d be throwing less at it. In this recent presentation, one of our Lobsters applies similarly rigorous approaches in their work with memory-safe language on top of it.
In comparison, these math coins often look like they’re not even trying. The activities I described found lots of failures in distributed software with benign components. Many more can happen when some parties are malicious intelligently crafting bad inputs. What’s their excuse for decentralized stuff not being as rigorous by default as centralized stuff like I cited? I doubt they’ll have a good one.
When these huge and glaring problems are raised, most of the counterargument is “number go up”. Certainly that’s what the IOTA cult comes out with, in between the harassment and legal threats.
The big promise is doing the Bitcoin magical flying unicorn pony tricks without wasting an Ireland of electricity. This feels to me like there’s gotta be some sort of no free lunch effect in play, though I wouldn’t claim to be able to prove it.
At least a non-zero number of these guys are more or less sane. They might be wrong or do something dumb, but at least it’ll be an informed wrong.
I was in polite mode for this post, but mathcoin white papers should mostly be read as mad scientist villain monologues. “They said I was mad - but I’LL SHOW THEM ALL!!” edit: actually, I’ll just go add that!
RE the no free lunch:
For RaiBlocks, the trade-off is that it’s so decentralized that you can’t have a full view of the state of the universe.
Each user has its own blockchain, so you only need blockchains related to transactions that interest you. (Transactions are movements between blockchain, starting with a genesis chain that everyone knows about)
Basically the system works in partial information, but that means that the system will only be partially visibile depending on where you stand
Empirical fault tolerance testing (as used for simpler and totally solved problems like in your examples) is insufficient for analyzing malicious party actions. Unfortunately, though, no one has come up with a clean mathematical framework for capturing all the intricacies of the economics of the system, so the math is still pretty ugly.
Empirical testing in that model is just about seeing if any inputs can throw off specified behavior. One tool among many but pretty good at finding problems.
In the traditional models, the builders ensure actions are traceable and revocable with boundary conditions or sanity checks built into the system. Then, they monitor for abuse. They block or reverse what they detect. This system works pretty well in practice. Pieces of the underlying methods have been formally verified as well. The math might be ugly for blockchain-based methods but not for the core of traditional models with decentralized checking and incident response. It’s why I favor designing around the latter.
No amount of empirical testing is convincing if the mathematical model is not sound. In central authority systems the math is quite straightforward and the testing reveals implementation inefficiencies and bugs. In new and complex trustless systems the math is still pretty suspect, so care and effort need to be spent there instead. This is why the two look very different at the moment.
Again, Im saying empirical testing can find problems in protocols or other software, not that it should replace math. Also, that it finds problems the math might not find. It can also be used to test math or its instantiation, though.
Cryptocurrencies are certainly a… textured subject of economics. But to answer the author’s question of, “How does a non-mathematician judge these things?”, well, for starters, perhaps by engaging reputable sources. Such as, say, one of those mathematicians, or perhaps an economist qualified to navigate the subject matter. The author, however, does not appear to be one of either. How did he judge?
Since joining Lobsters you’ve contributed virtually nothing but your own blog posts, a one man propaganda campaign attacking proof-of-work ad nauseam.
It reminds me of Mike Hearn, famous for spreading disinformation to socially attack Bitcoin.
I’m always curious about people who spread disinfo while censoring comments to their blogs that correct or disagree with them, and repeating ad nauseam, arguments that have been proven false/misleading multiple times. It seems you create problems in other communities too, whether it’s Wikipedia or RationalWiki.
For the benefit of anybody who skims the parent comment without checking, I’d like to mention the following:
@itistoday: have you noticed that you act very different on Bitcoin posts? Here’s what it looks like from the outside: most of your comments are helpful and courteous, a credit to any forum. But when you have commented on posts that criticise BitCoin, your comments seemed upset (and I don’t mean passionate, I mean hostile); you cited tweets and rants (above); and one comment even came across as mistrusting anyone who questions you. You don’t have to reply to me, but is a different attitude on Bitcoin something you’ve noticed yourself?
OK, what is this then?
And how is libel not a misdeed?
Re:
Of course. Most of the other subjects I engage on do not involve banks and/or intelligence agencies spending millions/billions on hiring troll farms and saboteurs to spread disinfo or in some other way sabotage the work in question. 😂
Downvote, move on, and remember the Streisand Effect.
OK, I’ve downvoted you for being off-topic.
I think that would miss the point of having an online discussion community. If someone were spreading disinfo (as David is gallantly doing) in a subject area I’m not familiar with, I would very much appreciate commenters who pointed that out.
Thanks for your contribution! Anything to discuss on the topic at hand? You have the knowledge to bring to the subject.
No, I’m still not letting your random abusive comments through, sorry. (He tries to comment on my blog like he comments here.) There are plenty of other places for you to comment.
Yeah, how about you fix this sentence and the blog post it links to:
You keep saying that, and people keep telling you why you’re completely mistaken, and you just ignore them. So, you are knowingly, deliberately misleading people.
Your previous attempt to show I was wrong, and Proof-of-Work was good actually, was to link some tweets and to be abusive when people told you that wasn’t really much of an argument.
Anything to say about this exciting new wave of not-a-blockchain coins? Just to get back onto the current topic, rather than some other topic, ad hominems or random abuse.
Wrong. This is me linking to some tweets.
In the link you just posted, are links to technical arguments explaining why “proof-of-work is wasteful”, is nonsense. It’s not like you are the first person to say this, so instead of copy/pasting a whole bunch of text, I linked you to it.
That you’re playing dumb proves again you’re here to troll.
You’re taking a feature of a currency — its ability to transparently and easily measure how much energy it’s using for its security — something no other global currency-system has been able to provide — and are pretending this feature is a bad thing. That’s your entire, bullshit argument. It’s nonsensical to the extreme.
One thing at a time! There’s no sense in talking with someone who can’t demonstrate they’re capable of honest conversation. Let’s wrap up that “proof-of-work is wasteful/bad” nonsense before wasting more time.
Contributing ones own work is not against the rules for this site. In fact there’s a checkbox indicating whether one is the author of a submitted link.
It’s up to the community to decide whether the link is on topic or not.
Nobody said it was.