Subject: [saag] Distributed ledgers and control

From: "Paul Hoffman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 13:38:38 -0500

Greetings. A few folks have recently been discussing which ledger and 
ledger-esque protocols should be used with upcoming IETF protocols. It 
is easy to conflate the governance of the ledger with its uses. A good 
article that helps make the distinction is:

https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-distributed-ledger-technologies-may-do-little-to-transform-the-economy/

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From: Thomas Hardjono <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 18:45:35 +0000

Agree Paul.

(1) Decentralization  \neq  user-centric control.

(2) Distributed/Decentralization  \neq  empowerment

(3) Decentralized  \neq  "trustless"

(4) Decentralized  \neq  trust (or more trust)

( \neq means not-equal)

/thomas/

________________________________________
From: saag [[email-masked]] on behalf of Paul Hoffman [[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2017 2:38 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [saag] Distributed ledgers and control

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From: Josh Howlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 19:53:59 +0000

> Greetings. A few folks have recently been discussing which ledger and ledger-
> esque protocols should be used with upcoming IETF protocols. It is easy to
> conflate the governance of the ledger with its uses.

That's a great article -- thank you. While you definitely can't do without either, effective trust infrastructure is more about institutions than cryptography.

Josh.

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From: Kyle Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 17:16:20 -0500

The fact that disagreement over a controversial block size change proposal
in Bitcoin resulted in conflict between factions, rather than in a
unilateral change by a governance committee, suggests that there is some
benefit to transparency of whatever combination of characteristics
distinguish Bitcoin from systems employing explicit trusted third parties:
separation of rule making from enforcement, consensus requirement, open
membership, forkability, etc.

For example, ISTM that a strength of Bitcoin is that attempts by a cabal to
apply computing power to take over the network and change the rules in its
favor would likely result in a fork by the legitimate users of the system.
That class of mitigation doesn't exist when title to assets resides with a
trusted third-party that can change or apply rules capriciously or
unfairly: ultimately, your recourse is the legal system, which in many
cases is in collusion with (or simply is) the third-party.

There are problems with blockchain systems (e.g., consensus virtually rules
out evolution, as we're witnessing with Bitcoin), but I'm not sure I buy
the conclusion that they provide no real benefit over traditional trusted
third-party mechanisms. It may be that blockchains constrain governance in
ways of real benefit to users.

Kyle

On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 1:38 PM, Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]> wrote:

> ledger-esque protocols should be used with upcoming IETF protocols. It is
> easy to conflate the governance of the ledger with its uses. A good article
> that helps make the distinction is:
>
> https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-dis
> tributed-ledger-technologies-may-do-little-to-transform-the-economy/
>

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From: David Mazieres <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2017 04:43:08 -0700

> https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-distributed-ledger-technologies-may-do-little-to-transform-the-economy/

First, a plug for the IETF Internet-level consensus (ILC) mailing list
(CCed), which is a good place to discuss these issues:

        https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ilc

as well as a reminder of the talk I'll be giving at the Thursday saag
meeting:

        https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/saag/current/msg07651.html

The article you forwarded seems like a reaction to the notion that
blockchain technologies can somehow supplant or circumvent regulation.
That's a common view within the cryptocurrency community, but a highly
controversial one outside.  Nonetheless, there are different
applications for some of the consensus technologies underlying
blockchain systems that don't undermine governance and may be of
interest to the IETF.

In particular, given a mechanism for Internet-level consensus, it
becomes possible to execute atomic transactions across parties that
don't know or trust one another.  Far from undermining regulation, this
actually makes it practical to bridge various regulatory jurisdictions
(e.g., create a total order across all certificates issued by all CAs,
or atomically perform two funds transfers in two different countries).

Furthermore, the notion of a blockchain-esque public log can be
leveraged for various forms of transparency.  For instance, last year
there was a controversy in which Apple claimed to refuse an FBI request
to sign a special compromised iPhone bootloader.  Unfortunately, for all
we know, Apple may have signed the software after all while claiming not
to for the PR benefit.  That they probably didn't yields the worst of
both worlds--angering the FBI and still spooking potential customers.
Requiring firmware updates to be published in a public log would allow
the public to verify whether or not such activity is happening.

David

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From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2017 08:24:17 -0500

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 6:43 AM, David Mazieres <
[email-masked]> wrote
> the public to verify whether or not such activity is happening.

Just for those who may not be tracking this kind of work, this is something
that's starting to happen, though typically with semi-centralized consensus
mechanisms. In that form, it's generally known as "Binary Transparency".

See, for instance:

- https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/binary-transparency
and
- https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Binary_Transparency

-Ekr