Hacker News Reader

magicjoshon Zooko: Decentralized, immutable and uncensorable microblogging

Interesting point about what "control" means. If I can put up a message that can never be taken down, is that control?

The case here is "yes", that's a certain type of control: the ability to put something up and never take it down. Kind of permissions on a disk where you can only write subsequent files but no one (including you) can delete old files. That is more control compared to someone who can write files but an admin can delete them.

magicjoshon Zooko: Decentralized, immutable and uncensorable microblogging

This is a neat hack. I've always been curious about these type of "publish right on the block" schemes like the picture of Len Sassman or the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Bitcoin addresses are up to 35 characters, so you could think about doing something like this on the Bitcoin chain as well. Example: "zooko:hi hackernews".

In this case, my understanding is they're updating the TXT record of your Handshake address (at least that's how it could work on ENS, but that's on the Ethereum blockchain) rather than the block itself.

Has anyone had a chance to test it out?

magicjoshon Ask HN: Has Gmail spam blocking taken a sudden nosedive?

I've never seen bold text formatting in an HN post, how do you do that? test #test# *test*

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫'𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐧-𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

https://zeroknowledge.fm/

This is excellent, listening to the Flashbots interview now: https://zeroknowledge.fm/168-2/ (urls dont have podcast title)

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

Thank you!

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

A list of resources, what a gift, thank you!

The "Zero-Knowledge Proofs Starter Pack" section is most up my alley. I read "Zero Knowledge Proofs: An illustrated primer by Matthew Green" about a year ago so am starting by re-reading this. https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2014/11/27/zero-kno...

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

Thank you! The introduction section got me super excited in the application of zk-snarks.

Any other articles more like the intro section? The rest of the article lost me quickly, not beyond my ability but would take me 10x reading through and multiple days.

Re-posting the part I loved here in case others want to read:

Zero-knowledge proofs are advantageous in a myriad of application, including:

1) Proving statement on private data: Person A has more than X in his bank account In the last year, a bank did not transact with an entity Y Matching DNA without revealing full DNA One has a credit score higher than Z

2) Anonymous authorization: Proving that requester R has right to access web-site’s restricted area without revealing its identity (e.g., login, password) Prove that one is from the list of allowed countries/states without revealing from which one exactly Prove that one owns a monthly pass to a subway/metro without revealing card’s id

3) Anonymous payments: Payment with full detachment from any kind of identity [Ben+14] Paying taxes without revealing one’s earnings

4) Outsourcing computation: Outsource an expensive computation and validate that the result is correct without redoing the execution; it opens up a category of trustless computing Changing a blockchain model from everyone computes the same to one party computes and everyone verifies

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

Save your words for people who want to hear it!

The people like me who really need your communications are starving for it. People who are already bought in and want quality content aren't getting much. This is a risk to the long term adoption of crypto.

My sources are few. I get a few crumbs on /ethfinance, and some nice nuggets from this thread, but there's just so much crap and snark to wade through it's almost not worth it.

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

This makes sense to me. Running a light client at the OS level isn't needed.

Is there some benefit to users from OS integration eventually? ie "Pay With Ethereum" in the same way Apple Pay / Google Pay / NFC works, does that benefit from running a light client?

Sure, maybe the incentives aren't there because Apple wants Apple Pay money but whoever does implement it will make their device more useful.

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

An inverse relationship here. The builders are busy building stuff and don't spend much time on communications. Whereas speculators, all they have is communications, and there are many more speculators than builders, so the incentives look like 99% crap, 1% useful communications.

Props to builders like the OP, Moxie, and Vitalik for building and sharing. And to podcasts like Bankless for creating venues for communication from builders. I'd love to find a "Builders" cryptocurrency podcast.

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

The ENS DAO is responsible for changes to the protocol. There's a constitution, delegates, and proposals as tools for corrections.

More info on the ENS Governance page: https://docs.ens.domains/v/governance/process

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

agreed the author has a great way of making complex topics more approachable. I wonder if there's a good/simple explanation of zkSnarks out there, I don't have any idea what they are despite seeing the term often.

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

fascinating thank you. The Find My analogy is thought provoking - a background service that creates a useful network. What does the light client world look like once complete, I wonder

magicjoshon On Web3 Infrastructure

"Light clients" is a term I've learned of recently. In the article, what are the specifics around "storage, bandwidth, and computation costs" for such a client? Is the idea we could all just have light clients running in the background on our phones with near zero impact?

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

Wow only a day later and 400+ ETH has been spent to mint additions to the art piece. The current cost to mint an addition is 1.4 ETH.

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

This whole "files stored on Google Drive" is growing pains. NFTs must all be hosted on IPFS.

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

Hardware wallets usually have a password enabled, in addition to other security mechanisms. Like I said, not sure the difference matters, but there is a difference.

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

Strange! An aside, their press release introduced me to the handy term "permaweb". I wonder when the Internet Archive will move to IPFS.

https://arweave.medium.com/arweave-announces-new-funding-fro...

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

There's a difference. You can drag someone out of their house without consent, but forcing a transfer requires consent. Does this difference matter?

magicjoshon Web 3 Doesn't Exist

This is a reference to the Fortune 500 companies like Square, Tesla, and Blackrock that hold thousands of bitcoin on their balance sheet.

You can see the current tallies at https://bitcointreasuries.net/

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

Getting Tim Wu to analyze cryptocurrencies with his lens of networks and centralization would be a real treat.

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

This article also helps me appreciate how important the "small node" approach is. Bitcoin and Ethereum nodes can run on $200 of hardware (a basic Raspberry Pi + 1 TB drive). And even that investment is inaccessible to most.

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

This is the premise [1] of $SOS token - though I haven't seen anything substantial, just what's on their website and in a few articles [2].

[1] https://www.theopendao.com/ [2] https://decrypt.co/89325/sos-token-aidrop-opendao-opensea-wh...

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

I haven't heard of Arweave before, but yes, the [1] link above doesn't show any results either in the "Browse" or "Search" mode. The premise sounds interesting though. Is this a bug of some sort or does someone with more info know what's up?

magicjoshon My First Impressions of Web3

Would that be effective for low-res images like cryptopunks? Or can I create other 24 x 24 px images that have the same hash?

magicjoshon Fastmail search is better than Gmail

On a related note - how is Protonmail's new full-text search? Saw it launched recently.

magicjoshon WTF Is .xyz?

Bizarre that .xyz got this coverage and not ENS. Was there a similar article about .eth / ENS? That seems like the root story...xyz is just a traditional domain branded as crypto and doing light integrations with ENS. Maybe a paid article/content by Techcrunch?

magicjoshon Messy NFT drop angers infosec pioneers with unauthorized portraits

OpenSea is just one attempt and it's pretty centralized. That's part of why SOS is getting so much hype, a decentralized auction platform along the lines of Uniswap but for NFTs.

magicjoshon Messy NFT drop angers infosec pioneers with unauthorized portraits

Nice turnaround!

Yes, OpenSea is centralized. That's part of the hype around SOS as an alternative, creating a decentralized NFT exchange instead.

Content hosting is also centralized (ie on Google Drive or at a URL).

NFTs can be decentralized. Current versions are not. The files are not stored on a chain or via IPFS. And there's no decentralized exchange.

The current version is kinda like an MVP stitched together.

magicjoshon I made my first web0 website today. It's so cool it just works

To the author: you would have fun checking out IPFS. It's a decentralized way to host your site. It's still in its infancy, and slow...but your site will be plenty fast on IPFS. Check out fleek.co for an easy way to start hosting on IPFS.