FPC on Web3
lazarus / 38-Networking and Web Programming
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Blacha · 2024-10-09 11:49
Good MAE,
as a long-time enthusiast of the FPC/Lazarus development environment,
I am fortunate enough to have been able to develop a commercial system
with applications developed in this development environment as its
core components. Thank you very much for the knowledge you are sharing
here. I have drawn heavily on it.
The system I created operates on Web2 solutions. Unfortunately, in
order to take care of data confidentiality, personal data protection,
system security and to stay abreast of potential threats and projects
to increase cyber security, I spent a lot of time on the above
problems instead of developing the functionality of the system. We
know that trends related to cyber security are changing at a dizzying
pace.
I was looking for an alternative...
I was interested in Web3 solutions, which would eliminate most of the
problems of Web2. Above all, I wanted decentralisation and data
security. At the same time, I was not satisfied with hybrid solutions
(e.g. frontend-web2 <-> backend-web3).
And I found something that made me start learning the syntax of a
completely new programming language (native to my chosen Web3
environment). No, it's not Solidity. This programming language is
called Motoko, and the Web3 solution is called Internet Computer
Protocol.
What are the characteristics of this Web3 environment? First of all,
both the frontend and the backend are decentralised. An example is
this website, which is 100% on-chain: https://6ec2p-paaaa-aaaal-
ai45q-cai.icp0.io/ Web3 data is organised in so-called canisters,
whose content is exposed and processed by WebAssembly.
But why am I writing to you about this?
Well, I have noticed that many communities around different
programming languages are building coding capabilities for Web3 in the
Internet Computer Protocol. Besides, I think Web3 is a very good
direction to go, bearing in mind that in Web3 everyone will be the
undisputed owner of their data entered there. Internet Computer
Protocol provides a sensible opportunity for this.
I'm happy with the development of FPC/Lazarus (pas2js, CSS). I am
happy with the tests described in this article, for example:
https://faizilham.github.io/making-budget-pascal-compiler
I am aware of my still too little knowledge about web solutions, so I
ask a question to the wiser - what do you see as potential obstacles
to building Web3 solutions with WebAssembly in the FPC/Lazarus
environment?
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Thaddy · 2024-10-09 16:54
Looks like spam, because fpc can already compile to web assembly....
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dsiders · 2024-10-09 16:57
Quote from: Thaddy on October 09, 2024, 06:54:24 pmLooks like spam,
because fpc can already compile to web assembly....
If it's not spam... it is definitely word salad.
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Blacha · 2024-10-09 17:56
I'll try differently...
I recommend a very nice material from last year indicating Pascal's
development tendencies in the area of Web Development:
https://youtu.be/epwjaCoTQug?si=WKx1BD78DL8bxsJL
The entire lecture above is about Web2 solutions. Unfortunately, the
world is "rushing" towards Web3 solutions. Because while there is no
problem with preparing the frontend in Pascal (I know perfectly well
that WebAssembly is within reach, so this is not what the discussion
is about), there are no solutions that allow you to compile the
backend to work in a distributed ledger (of any kind). Aside from
languages specializing in such coding, in Python, C, C++ you can
already do it...
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Thaddy · 2024-10-09 18:00
Freepascal trunk does the same, but you need trunk and compile a cross
compiler for wasm.
It is really there and you can see for yourself it really is (already)
good. There are frequent updates to iron out the last glitches. but
you have to use trunk.
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Blacha · 2024-10-09 18:23
Quote from: Thaddy on October 09, 2024, 08:00:36 pmFreepascal trunk
does the same, but you need trunk and compile a cross compiler for
wasm.
It is really there and you can see for yourself it really is (already)
good. There are frequent updates to iron out the last glitches. but
you have to use trunk.
Sorry for the naïve question - why do I need a trunk in a distributed
ledger/blockchain? It is useless. That's the problem – we need
completely different tools for Web3. To be clear - WebAssembly is not
a problem, on the contrary - the fact that Pascal can handle it is a
huge advantage and a big step forward in development for Web3. I
suggest you take a look at how the community, e.g. C/C++, does it.
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VisualLab · 2024-10-09 23:07
Blacha, if you want to be on top, use the Mbutu programming language
with the Network Transputer Protocol (NetTrP), which uses cognitive
paths for parallel processing of decentralized and clustered data.
What you presented were some toys from yesterday. Mbutu works based on
Web4 solutions (Web5 solutions will be available in a month at the
latest). And yes, I agree that trends related to cybersecurity are
changing at a dizzying pace. That is why solutions using complementary
matroids have been implemented in the NetTrP protocol, and data
transfer between them is carried out using duads and triads (monads
are not used because they can be easily decoded).
Dear Blacha, I suggest you stop talking nonsense. And give up what you
smoke, because it's harmful to you
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Thaddy · 2024-10-10 04:30
We do not need to look. mechanisms and principles as other languages
do. Indeed a bit naive.
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H₂SO₄ · 2024-10-10 06:15
To those that aren't aware, "Web3" is a marketing term used by
cryptocurrency proponents to describe their vision of an internet
wherein central servers have been displaced by decentralized nodes of
the almighty blockchain.
To utilize network resources (e.g. sending transactions, executing
blockchain VM code, hosting something), of course payment in the form
of cryptocurrency is required. To acquire such crypto, you either need
to participate in the network (that is, either expend huge amounts of
compute resources/electricity in proof-of-work systems or lock up a
large amount of capital in proof-of-stake chains) or, in true market
liberalist fashion, buy it on the open market. Crypto prices are
extremely volatile and unpredictable, with the project founders often
controlling a large portion of the supply. The end goal for many
projects is thus getting people to buy their coin in order to make the
founders filthy rich.
And as you've probably noticed, crypto proponents are amongst the
worst offenders when it comes to buzzword salad.
Granted, I'm biased. I just can't shake the feeling of ulterior
motives with these kinds of posts (e.g. pumping a personal
investment), especially since the original post reads like a promotion
for Internet Computer/ICP.
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marcov · 2024-10-10 06:24
Quote from: VisualLab on October 10, 2024, 01:07:36 amon Web4
solutions (Web5 solutions will be available in a month at the latest).
Is that the one with A.I. ?
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Blacha · 2024-10-10 09:42
Good MAE,
I suggest looking at the issue without irony, stereotypes, your own
fears. These curve the picture and cause the subject to be perceived
through fear and uncertainty. This is an old method of manipulating
public opinion, and we don't want that, do we? We may be stuck in a
sense of our own ‘awesomeness’, but that's not the point after all.
The fact is that the commitment of programmers to the development of
the Pascal language through its use is slowly dying out. It is also a
fact that the FPC community is quite active (as evidenced by this
forum). And we can tell each other what a very cool tool FPC is, but
unfortunately, the job market does not bear this out. Someone might
ask me - well, why did you choose FPC/Lazarus? The answer is simple -
I'm an ‘old school’ programmer, and the licensing opportunities
provided by this development environment allowed me to create
commercial products with an attractive ‘cost-effectiveness’ ratio with
the ability to run on different operating systems with different
processors. This was exactly what I needed.
Unfortunately, today this no longer impresses anyone...
A few words about money and personal data...
Someone here wrote that blockchain, that scammers, that it's
disgusting money and that it should generally be avoided. And that is
the stereotype, because we look at this technology through the prism
of money. My good advice - if you don't want to be scammed,
then...don't get scammed. Think for yourself and don't be greedy.
And now for some facts about Interent Computer Protocol:
ICP network node points today are a very different reality to the one
cited in the 2022 forum thread. Each of us can get involved. A matter
of time, money and being vetted by the DAO-centric ICP community (for
the inquisitive - recall the history of DNS development and what has
been done to increase decentralisation. Here the story is very
similar);the website linked in my first post has been put on the
blockchain as SC, but without the backend. It is an experimental
product to test the capabilities of ICP. The cost of embedding and
maintaining this website in the ICP blockchain is...$5. At the current
level of traffic, the website will run cost-free and maintenance-free
for the next 10 years. Horse and pony who can achieve such a result
with web2 solutions. I don't see a more attractive alternative to this
form of hosting;a great example of the possibilities of this
technology is the OpenChat messenger (decentralised and on-chain
100%). If anyone is interested in exploring the possibilities of this
software - feel free to contact me on OpenChat.As a certified data
protection officer, I am starting to view with amusement
(unfortunately) solutions that ensure confidentiality within the
framework of contracts for outsourcing the processing of personal
data. It's like that joke about ‘social confidentiality’ - everyone
knows something about you, but you don't know that they know it. And
with Web2, that is exactly the case. In my country, the Minister of
Health used knowledge from the medical informatics system in a public
discussion with his opponent. This is VERY DANGEROUS.
And most importantly - I absolutely do not intend to touch on the
financial benefits of using blockchain here.
Let me give you an example - I am in the process of developing a Web3
application for accounting for taxes on capital trading. Blockchain
ICP allows me to build a database with a high degree of
confidentiality. I am using Motoko to create the SC. And I would like
FPC because I see the potential.
Just that and so much more...
P.S. I am thinking in this way that if the FPC/Lazarus community
functioned within its own DAO and decisions on development directions
were made within the DAO, this discussion would take a very different
shape.
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VisualLab · 2024-10-10 16:44
Quote from: marcov on October 10, 2024, 08:24:35 amQuote from:
VisualLab on October 10, 2024, 01:07:36 amon Web4 solutions (Web5
solutions will be available in a month at the latest).
Is that the one with A.I. ?
No. It was a (slightly malicious) joke on my part. I responded to his
gibberish with anti-gibberish. His long-winded tirade without content
(such "clacking") is written in such a way that it reminds me of the
ramblings of a troll-tout type of person who is convinced of his so-
called "fucking awesomness" (or kind of IT fanfuckingtasticness).
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VisualLab · 2024-10-10 16:59
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 11:42:36 amGood MAE,
I suggest...
his textual chaff
...very different shape.
At first I was going to respond to this "text chaff", but it's a waste
of my time. The content gives the impression that it was generated by
some AI bot powered by a (parameterized) script into which someone
added a list of keywords that should be included in the resulting
text. It's a waste of time to spend on this garbage. People visiting
the forum may get the impression that there are more such rubbish
threads, so this may negatively affect the perception of the forum by
people who visit the forum less often. I suggest deleting this thread,
it's a waste of space for garbage.
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MarkMLl · 2024-10-10 17:08
Quote from: VisualLab on October 10, 2024, 06:59:57 pmAt first I was
going to respond to this "text chaff", but it's a waste of my time.
The content gives the impression that it was generated by some AI bot
powered by a (parameterized) script into which someone added a list of
keywords that should be included in the resulting text. It's a waste
of time to spend on this garbage. People visiting the forum may get
the impression that there are more such rubbish threads, so this may
negatively affect the perception of the forum by people who visit the
forum less often. I suggest deleting this thread, it's a waste of
space for garbage.
It must be genuine and incisive, Joanna hasn't accused OP of being a
troll or a "Pascal hater"...
MarkMLl
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marcov · 2024-10-10 17:19
So, assume all you say it is true (since blockchain etc discussions
are not on topic here, only Pascal programming is), what are your
plans?
Will you port FPC to web3, and when do you expect to have something
running?
Large work and course changes must be done by the people with a large
stake in the subject matter, and you seem to be passionate about it.
Expecting the current developers to drop what they are doing is not
likely to happen, so not very productive, since they might not be in
the security field (in that way)
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VisualLab · 2024-10-10 17:21
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 10, 2024, 07:08:53 pmQuote from:
VisualLab on October 10, 2024, 06:59:57 pmAt first I was going to
respond to this "text chaff", but it's a waste of my time. The content
gives the impression that it was generated by some AI bot powered by a
(parameterized) script into which someone added a list of keywords
that should be included in the resulting text. It's a waste of time to
spend on this garbage. People visiting the forum may get the
impression that there are more such rubbish threads, so this may
negatively affect the perception of the forum by people who visit the
forum less often. I suggest deleting this thread, it's a waste of
space for garbage.
It must be genuine and incisive, Joanna hasn't accused OP of being a
troll or a "Pascal hater"...
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VisualLab · 2024-10-10 17:26
Quote from: marcov on October 10, 2024, 07:19:31 pmSo, assume all you
say it is true (since blockchain etc discussions are not on topic
here, only Pascal programming is), what are your plans?
Will you port FPC to web3, and when do you expect to have something
running?
Large work and course changes must be done by the people with a large
stake in the subject matter, and you seem to be passionate about it.
Expecting the current developers to drop what they are doing is not
likely to happen, so not very productive, since they might not be in
the security field (in that way)
If he responds with a long tirade full of pompous phrases without any
specific content, it may indicate that the text was probably generated
by a bot.
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Blacha · 2024-10-10 18:43
Quote from: marcov on October 10, 2024, 07:19:31 pmSo, assume all you
say it is true (since blockchain etc discussions are not on topic
here, only Pascal programming is), what are your plans?
Will you port FPC to web3, and when do you expect to have something
running?
Large work and course changes must be done by the people with a large
stake in the subject matter, and you seem to be passionate about it.
Expecting the current developers to drop what they are doing is not
likely to happen, so not very productive, since they might not be in
the security field (in that way)
Thank you for this point of view.
I apologize, but I will ignore the irrelevant suggestions of the
participants of this discussion, because I want to avoid verbal
jostling, and besides... please do not take offense at what I am about
to write, but I am at a stage in my life where the line of people
willing to kiss my ass is getting longer and longer. Thanks to this, I
can focus on nice and pleasant things, e.g. my passion for FPC/Lazarus
and Web3. I do not have time for "jostling".
Where would I start? By reviewing several important tools for creating
ICP projects. One of them is "dfx" - is the primary tool for creating,
deploying, and managing the dapps for the Internet Computer platform.
If we use dfx to create a new project ("dfx new project1"), the
structure of the dapp project will be created. Before the structure is
created, dfx gives you a choice of tools - various backend programming
languages and several frameworks for the frontend (can be skipped).
And here it is begging to enable the possibility of building
everything based on FPC. Building the frontend? No problem with
pas2js. The final effect (html and js) can be embedded in the frontend
structure.
It's worse with the backend. Here it's worth analyzing the libraries
available for different programming languages (on-chain and off-
chain) and I agree that this is work for the team. A huge advantage of
the FPC/Lazarus environment is the ability to create WebAssembly code.
dfx gives you the ability to run SC in a locally available canister
(node.js) or send it to the ICP mainnet (dfx deploy).
Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge to assess the scope of work,
but from my initial analysis it appears that the entire code for the
dapp could be prepared in Pascal.
Smart contract written in Pascal... wow! how does that sound!
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VisualLab · 2024-10-10 23:19
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 08:43:09 pmI apologize, but I
will ignore the irrelevant suggestions of the participants of this
discussion, because I want to avoid verbal jostling, and besides...
Ooo, so it's not a bot after all Either way, the participants'
suggestions were not only important, they were crucial. Because only
after that did the OP start writing content that resembles a human's
statements and not a bot's!
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 08:43:09 pmplease do not take
offense at what I am about to write, but I am at a stage in my life
where the line of people willing to kiss my ass is getting longer and
longer.
So what if the OP didn't turn out to be a bot when something's wrong
with his head. He fancies himself as some kind of God Are Alzheimer's
and Parkinson's gentlemen trying to visit him or did he smoke too much
"weed"? And in addition he has "sophisticated" fantasies with cheap
sexual overtones
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 08:43:09 pmWhere would I
start? By reviewing several important tools for creating ICP projects.
One of them is "dfx" - is the primary tool for creating, deploying,
and managing the dapps for the Internet Computer platform.
If we use dfx to create a new project ("dfx new project1"), the
structure of the dapp project will be created. Before the structure is
created, dfx gives you a choice of tools - various backend programming
languages and several frameworks for the frontend (can be skipped).
And here it is begging to enable the possibility of building
everything based on FPC. Building the frontend? No problem with
pas2js. The final effect (html and js) can be embedded in the frontend
structure.
It's worse with the backend. Here it's worth analyzing the libraries
available for different programming languages (on-chain and off-
chain) and I agree that this is work for the team. A huge advantage of
the FPC/Lazarus environment is the ability to create WebAssembly code.
dfx gives you the ability to run SC in a locally available canister
(node.js) or send it to the ICP mainnet (dfx deploy).
Well, there is not as much "sawdust" in this text as in the previous
"essays". So it really isn't a bot
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 08:43:09 pmUnfortunately, I
don't have the knowledge to assess the scope of work, but from my
initial analysis it appears that the entire code for the dapp could be
prepared in Pascal.
Wow, what an insightful analysis! And with a delicate note of
"ingratiating"
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 08:43:09 pmSmart contract
written in Pascal... wow! how does that sound!
And at the end, toadying to the point of nausea Who's trying to kiss
whose a...?
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H₂SO₄ · 2024-10-11 05:12
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 08:43:09 pmI am at a stage in
my life where the line of people willing to kiss my ass is getting
longer and longer. Thanks to this, I can focus on nice and pleasant
things, e.g. my passion for FPC/Lazarus and Web3.
[...]
Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge to assess the scope of work,
but from my initial analysis it appears that the entire code for the
dapp could be prepared in Pascal.
Smart contract written in Pascal... wow! how does that sound!
Well, then why don't you go ask your countless ass-kissers to help you
get off your ass and start actually focusing on your FPC on Web3
project instead of going "please FPC developers can I have this thank
you in advance"? If anyone is kissing asses, it's you asking other
people to do your work for free so you can make money off it more
easily.
Crypto and smart contracts are an interesting technology. I'm not
ruling out widespread adoption somewhere in the future. But the sheer
arrogance and sense of entitlement many cryptobros put on display
makes my blood boil.
This will be my last reply in this thread; I got baited.
Enjoy your moisturized butt and your centralized VC shitcoin.
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MarkMLl · 2024-10-11 07:04
Quote from: VisualLab on October 11, 2024, 01:19:16 amOoo, so it's not
a bot after all Either way, the participants' suggestions were not
only important, they were crucial. Because only after that did the OP
start writing content that resembles a human's statements and not a
bot's!
In fairness, he's posted a couple of coherent comments elsewhere.
However this thread definitely isn't.
MarkMLl
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Blacha · 2024-10-11 08:59
Good MAE,
I will try to ask the question from the first post again - what do you
see as potential obstacles to building Web3 solutions with WebAssembly
in the FPC/Lazarus environment?
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Marc · 2024-10-11 09:01
Hi,
The problem is that most of us (I think) have little to zero
experience with this "web3". If I read this, I think what's in it for
me. How can it help my product. What are the benefits for my
customers. Except that it is the next "hype thing".
What I do want to know is how it works. How will a regular app look
like. What needs to be done behind the scenes. Having only a
description of tool like 'dxf' is for me something like black magic.
Everything is in a black box, and the command "MakeIt" does it all...
what... how... help...
So if you want something to happen in the next X years, explain in
normal understandable words
Marc
Quote from: Blacha on October 10, 2024, 08:43:09 pmThank you for this
point of view.
I apologize, but I will ignore the irrelevant suggestions of the
participants of this discussion, because I want to avoid verbal
jostling, and besides... please do not take offense at what I am about
to write, but I am at a stage in my life where the line of people
willing to kiss my ass is getting longer and longer. Thanks to this, I
can focus on nice and pleasant things, e.g. my passion for FPC/Lazarus
and Web3. I do not have time for "jostling".
Where would I start? By reviewing several important tools for creating
ICP projects. One of them is "dfx" - is the primary tool for creating,
deploying, and managing the dapps for the Internet Computer platform.
If we use dfx to create a new project ("dfx new project1"), the
structure of the dapp project will be created. Before the structure is
created, dfx gives you a choice of tools - various backend programming
languages and several frameworks for the frontend (can be skipped).
And here it is begging to enable the possibility of building
everything based on FPC. Building the frontend? No problem with
pas2js. The final effect (html and js) can be embedded in the frontend
structure.
It's worse with the backend. Here it's worth analyzing the libraries
available for different programming languages (on-chain and off-
chain) and I agree that this is work for the team. A huge advantage of
the FPC/Lazarus environment is the ability to create WebAssembly code.
dfx gives you the ability to run SC in a locally available canister
(node.js) or send it to the ICP mainnet (dfx deploy).
Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge to assess the scope of work,
but from my initial analysis it appears that the entire code for the
dapp could be prepared in Pascal.
Smart contract written in Pascal... wow! how does that sound!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-11 10:04
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 10:59:20 amGood MAE,
I will try to ask the question from the first post again...
Quite a nice marketing graphic. I can do that too. I would just add
more green to make it seem more ecological
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 10:59:20 amwhat do you see as
potential obstacles to building Web3 solutions with WebAssembly in the
FPC/Lazarus environment?
The main obstacle is the vision of no benefits from devoting time and
effort to dealing with something that you are trying to present in in
bright colors here.
As Khrys mentioned earlier, everything related to cryptocurrencies has
all sorts of serious flaws.
1. So far, it has only brought benefits to small groups of various
bandits, fraudsters and slysters:
drug manufacturers and dealers,arms dealers (like But or
Kashoggi),burglars encrypting files on users' computers and promising
to decrypt them in exchange for paying a ransom,burglars and fences
stealing data (personal, financial, source code) from companies and
institutions and offering this data on the DarkNet,scammers/fraudsters
who extort real money from naive people in exchange for virtual
currency.2. All this infrastructure requires hardware with a lot of
computing power and is terribly energy-intensive.
3. Cryptocurrencies are subject to huge exchange rate fluctuations,
much larger and much more often than traditional currencies. It is
possible that these fluctuations are caused by people who, however,
have some control over this software and manipulate it in order to
gain benefits at the expense of other participants.
Cryptocurrencies have been around for quite a long time and their
serious drawbacks have still not been eliminated. So far, there are no
benefits for the average Joe. Conclusion: cryptocurrencies are a dead
end. In the past, people had many different ideas that turned out to
be useless after years due to their flaws.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-11 11:00
Quote from: Marc on October 11, 2024, 11:01:07 amSo if you want
something to happen in the next X years, explain in normal
understandable words
Thank you.
I will try to outline a few of the most significant features of this
technology:
dApp is launched in the browser regardless of the operating system
and processor (I think the world of technology is definitely heading
in that direction); decentralization - in ICP both the frontend and
backend are decentralized in the so-called distributed ledger. What
are the advantages of this? Our application is always and everywhere
available until the last node of the blockchain network is turned off.
infrastructure security - dApp and data processed by dApp are
resistant to attacks that we know from web2. Apart from the fact of
encryption, a potential attacker has no possibility of focusing on a
single server, IP address, domain; data security - data processed in
web3 is natively encrypted and distributed. There is no possibility of
browsing without the keys of the owner of this data; built-in
identification systems (Internet Identity) based on a certificate
delegated by blockchain to the browser signed with our key (in very
simple terms). There is no need to create complicated and multi-
component login and authentication systems. The backend checks the
permissions to call (who is caller) a function or access data based on
the so-called PrincipalID. I emphasize - this is the native
functionality of this technology ready to use. All you need is a
hardware key (e.g. an independent or built-in encryption module in a
smartphone or computer); implementation costs - until recently this
was a significant obstacle, but with the development of ICP this has
changed dramatically. In ICP, the so-called "reverse gas" operates,
i.e. the implementation costs are negligible at the beginning and may
(but do not have to) increase with the growing popularity of the dapp.
From a business point of view, it is a win-win. For some time now, we
have been hosting the frontend in ICP and observing the costs. The
conclusions are satisfactory enough that we are slowly preparing to
host websites in parallel in web2 and web3 and eventually completely
switch to web3 (especially since there is no SEO problem in web3 ICP);
4Gb canisters, in which we embed both the dApp and the data
(WebAssembly). Canisters can be connected, created from the backend or
managed depending on your needs. A cool example is the decentralized
OpenChat messenger I mentioned earlier - there, each
user/group/community functions in the canister space.The development
of various dApps on ICP can be observed here.
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MarkMLl · 2024-10-11 11:15
So if I'm reading that correctly: it's a distributed botnet for
cryptocurrency transaction processing.
MarkMLl
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Blacha · 2024-10-11 12:55
Let me give you a practical example - I once created a system for a
certain healthcare entity that consisted of an element supporting
patient registration and office software for doctors (yes, I created
the key elements of the system in FPC/Lazarus). During COVID-19,
online sessions dominated, so there was a need to create tests for
remote execution (e.g. MMPI II). I will skip the organizational
details, but considering art. 9 GDPR (Processing of special categories
of personal data), it was a big challenge to do it safely.
Fortunately, there were no mishaps...
Creating similar software in Web3 would eliminate about 80% of the
undertakings and problems related to the security of such a system.
Sensitive data (medical records and specialists' notes) would be
available only to authorized medical personnel, bypassing the services
of the entity authorized to process data based on the contract (ISPs,
IT specialists operating the system on the server side, cloud service
providers and others).
And finally - please, let's not bring cryptocurrencies into this,
because that's not what we're talking about!
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MarkMLl · 2024-10-11 13:13
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 02:55:22 pmAnd finally -
please, let's not bring cryptocurrencies into this, because that's not
what we're talking about!
Well, you were the one who started off with the "word salad" so what
do you expect us to think?
So you're talking about a distributed ledger. Where is the bulk data
kept? /Surely/ you aren't relying on peoples' desktop PCs for that,
particularly after it's been running for a while and has accumulated a
few petabytes of state? /Surely/ that will need facilities rented in
server farms, which aren't going to be browser-based (or even browser-
capable) making things like Webasm far less relevant? /Surely/, for
the limited number of target types, native code or an established
intermediary like Java bytecode will make more sense, particularly
since some types of server will already have Java accelerators?
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-11 13:43
I have not used the word "cryptocurrencies" in any of my statements.
Just to be clear.
I have to admit to one thing - I am measuring this discussion by my
own standards, so it may indeed sound like a marketing message.
So I am catching up.
Why ICP (Internet Computer Protocol)?
Well, because it is the only protocol that allows dApps to function in
their purest decentralized form with reasonable maintenance costs.
Unfortunately, other solutions require the use of hybrid models (I
wrote about this in the first post), i.e. frontend-web2 <-> some
intermediary solution or the so-called oracle <-> backend-web3. Why am
I not interested in such a solution? Because it is not very secure and
susceptible to penetration. If you look at the costs of maintaining a
dApp in different environments, you will understand why I chose ICP.
As for the IC network topology, I suggest you familiarize yourself
with this data:
https://wiki.internetcomputer.org/wiki/Decentralization The hardware
requirements of the network are quite a challenge (despite the
division of requirements into acceptable generations), but there are
more and more nodes willing to participate in the ICP consensus
mechanism.
The basic format of the ICP smart contract code is WebAssembly (WASM).
Of course, it must meet the restrictive requirements for the protocol,
but it is for this reason (also because of pas2js, CSS-based controls)
that I see FPC/Lazarus with great potential for building dApps in this
environment.
Instead of creating a tirade, let me direct your attention to ready-
made explanations for self-education:
https://internetcomputer.org/how-it-works
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-11 13:55
Quote from: Joanna on October 11, 2024, 03:48:08 pmJust How many times
are you all going to get tricked by the same entity that keeps making
new accounts?
...
Hi , while you are all busy interacting with this reincarnated poster
from previous equally ridiculous threads, I was trying to build a
community for pascal programmers.
Joanna, that is not your call. The rest of us are gradually teaching
him to write English, so don't just jump in accusing him of being a
troll.
I'm tacking your other comment into a different thread to avoid
polluting this one.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-11 14:36
Sorry, but I'll allow myself a little off-topic.
This thread is being viewed by my Son - a second-year computer science
student (BTW, the graph about trends that I attached to one of my
previous posts came from a presentation from last year's inaugural
lecture at his university. Should I worry about my Son's education?
).
Do you know how he reacted? Right on target!
And I'd like you to distance yourself from the opinions of a young
man.
He said: "Don't worry, Blacha. They are like a certain lecturer from
my university who is old, doesn't want to develop and oppresses
students by telling them that his subject is the most important. And
the worst thing is that the university authorities are afraid to tell
him that he is unnecessary for fear of his health and a heart attack.
They are waiting for him to leave this world on his own..."
However, I don't want FPC to be forgotten. Especially since Joanna's
words sounded so pompous.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-11 14:50
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 01:00:05 pmQuote from: Marc on
October 11, 2024, 11:01:07 amSo if you want something to happen in the
next X years, explain in normal understandable words
Thank you.
I will try to outline a few of the most significant features of this
technology:
dApp is launched in the browser regardless of the operating system
and processor (I think the world of technology is definitely heading
in that direction); decentralization - in ICP both the frontend and
backend are decentralized in the so-called distributed ledger. What
are the advantages of this? Our application is always and everywhere
available until the last node of the blockchain network is turned off.
infrastructure security - dApp and data processed by dApp are
resistant to attacks that we know from web2. Apart from the fact of
encryption, a potential attacker has no possibility of focusing on a
single server, IP address, domain; data security - data processed in
web3 is natively encrypted and distributed. There is no possibility of
browsing without the keys of the owner of this data; built-in
identification systems (Internet Identity) based on a certificate
delegated by blockchain to the browser signed with our key (in very
simple terms). There is no need to create complicated and multi-
component login and authentication systems. The backend checks the
permissions to call (who is caller) a function or access data based on
the so-called PrincipalID. I emphasize - this is the native
functionality of this technology ready to use. All you need is a
hardware key (e.g. an independent or built-in encryption module in a
smartphone or computer); implementation costs - until recently this
was a significant obstacle, but with the development of ICP this has
changed dramatically. In ICP, the so-called "reverse gas" operates,
i.e. the implementation costs are negligible at the beginning and may
(but do not have to) increase with the growing popularity of the dapp.
From a business point of view, it is a win-win. For some time now, we
have been hosting the frontend in ICP and observing the costs. The
conclusions are satisfactory enough that we are slowly preparing to
host websites in parallel in web2 and web3 and eventually completely
switch to web3 (especially since there is no SEO problem in web3 ICP);
4Gb canisters, in which we embed both the dApp and the data
(WebAssembly). Canisters can be connected, created from the backend or
managed depending on your needs. A cool example is the decentralized
OpenChat messenger I mentioned earlier - there, each
user/group/community functions in the canister space.The development
of various dApps on ICP can be observed here.
So the OP had to be "encouraged" because he himself, of his own free
will, did not deign to write a readable and sensible text without
external pressure. There is one problem with the above text: the links
lead to pages that contain content mainly about cryptocurrencies (even
a cursory "glance" allows you to notice this). Additionally, instead
of being a normal articles, they look like fragments of advertising
folders.
So what? It seems that MarkMLI was right when he wrote:
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 11, 2024, 01:15:05 pmSo if I'm reading
that correctly: it's a distributed botnet for cryptocurrency
transaction processing.
MarkMLl
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 02:55:22 pmAnd finally -
please, let's not bring cryptocurrencies into this, because that's not
what we're talking about!
Yes? So why is there so much cryptocurrency content on the websites
you linked to?
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 03:43:30 pmI have not used the
word "cryptocurrencies" in any of my statements. Just to be clear.
You didn't use it because you know that people are allergic to the
word "cryptocurrencies". Everyone is tired of this topic, it makes
them nauseous. Instead, you smuggled in various vague suggestions
(e.g. mentions of solutions used for cryptocurrencies).
So either you say what you really mean, or Joanna "will settle the
matter once and for all"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-11 15:36
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 04:36:38 pmSorry, but I'll
allow myself a little off-topic.
This thread is being viewed by my Son - a second-year computer science
student (BTW, the graph about trends that I attached to one of my
previous posts came from a presentation from last year's inaugural
lecture at his university. Should I worry about my Son's education?
).
This is more of a representation of someone's vision and opinion on IT
development than a true picture of IT development. Someone else would
have created a chart with slightly different topics or placed those
topics in different sections than your chart.
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 04:36:38 pmDo you know how he
reacted? Right on target!
And I'd like you to distance yourself from the opinions of a young
man.
Do you mean the diagram you attached?
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 04:36:38 pmHe said: "Don't
worry, Blacha. They are like a certain lecturer from my university who
is old, doesn't want to develop and oppresses students by telling them
that his subject is the most important. And the worst thing is that
the university authorities are afraid to tell him that he is
unnecessary for fear of his health and a heart attack. They are
waiting for him to leave this world on his own..."
Everyone will be old unless they die prematurely Doesn't want to
develop, so what? Doesn't the lecturer learn new "stuff"? For example,
a new version of the "amazing" JavaScript library that checks the
current date
What does this lecturer teach? Mathematics, basics of automation,
signal processing? In such a case, students are unable to evaluate it
because their knowledge is still too poor. Usually, subjects such as
mathematics (or those that use mathematics intensively) are not liked
by students (there are exceptions), because it requires a lot of time
to master the material. So, according to most students, they perceive
it as bullying (which is nonsense). Therefore, yes, such subjects are
indeed the most important in computer science studies. Besides,
studies are not obligatory.
If your son doesn't like these studies, he can change the university
and study, for example, gender studies, public administration,
cosmetology or poetry writing
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 04:36:38 pmHowever, I don't
want FPC to be forgotten.
What compassion! I almost cried with emotion - but I didn't have
chopped onion
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-11 16:43
Some examples of more interesting projects for and with the IC
network:
Sudograph
Sudograph is a GraphQL database for the Internet Computer. Its goal is
to become the simplest way to develop applications for the IC by
providing flexibility and out-of-the-box data management.
Zondax Unreal
Enabling game developer communities to integrate their C++ native
projects with the IC interface onchain, using our wrapper for seamless
interaction. Easy deployment using Unreal Engine, or other C++ native
projects. Our mission is to bridge the gap, enhancing IC's
accessibility and inviting a broader community of creators. Using
Zondax Unreal, game devs can fully unlock IC's potential.
Kybra
Kybra is a Python Canister Development Kit (CDK) for the Internet
Computer. In other words, it's a Python runtime for building
applications on the IC.
Kinic
Kinic provides artificial intelligence tooling for the new web. Deploy
vector databases, machine learning instances, and much more leveraging
web3.
ICPipeline
ICPipeline is your self-contained, n-tiered development and testing
platform, designed and built specifically for the Internet Computer
ecosystem. On-demand dev tooling for the next generation of IC/Web3
applications.
ICME
ICME is a no-code tool that makes it easy for anyone to build and
deploy beautiful websites on the Internet Computer. Launch your blog
or business's website on the Internet Computer today.
Difibase
Difibase is a database provider (NoSQL). You can use the system's
database or integrate your own!
Go Agent
Go Agent provides the toolbox needed to interact with the Internet
Computer from Go. It is a collection of packages that can be used to
build applications that interact with canister smart contracts.
Java Agent
Java Agent for the Internet Computer is an open source library. This
developer tool enables Java applications to connect remotely to any
canister smart contract on the Internet Computer and execute query and
update calls.
ICEvent
Decentralized Calendar Solution (ticket, appointment, itinerary,
schedule)
Python Agent
This Python Agent built for the Internet Computer opens the door for
Python developers to more easily become Web3 builders.
CODEBASE
Decentralized Git hosting and software collaboration, powered by
permissionless protocols.
icpp-pro
C++ Canister Development Kit (CDK). Seamlessly develop, debug, test &
deploy your C++ Canisters from Windows, Linux or Mac.
Fleek
Fleek brings decentralized web-hosting to the Internet Computer. With
thousands of webpages deployed, Fleek enables anyone to deploy their
content on Web3.0
AgorApp
AgorApp is a Codecademy-style interactive coding environment where
users can learn to develop smart contracts on ICP and, then, test
their skills by participating in web3 CTFs and smart contract
optimization contests.
Pluto
Pluton is an HTTP router implemented on the Internet Computer to
facilitate working with HTTP. This router is a framework that allows
you to write REST API applications on the blockchain in almost the
same way as in Web 2
IC WebSocket
IC WebSocket enables you to establish a WebSocket connection between
your canister and any client, such as the user browsers. Finally, you
can send updates to your users directly from the canister!
Dmail Network
Dmail Network is an AI-powered decentralized communication
infrastructure built to provide encrypted emails, unified
notifications, and targeted marketing across multiple chains and dApps
for users, developers, marketers and influencers
Many and varied. So why not with FPC/Lazarus?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-11 16:44
Quote from: VisualLab on October 11, 2024, 04:50:22 pmYou didn't use
it because you know that people are allergic to the word
"cryptocurrencies". Everyone is tired of this topic, it makes them
nauseous. Instead, you smuggled in various vague suggestions (e.g.
mentions of solutions used for cryptocurrencies).
So either you say what you really mean, or Joanna "will settle the
matter once and for all"
I for one am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt now that
he's started writing English. He did himself a disservice by starting
off in gobbledygook, and he does himself few favours quoting his son
as an authority with no indication of affiliation (we all know that
half the degree certificates in circulation are of no value
whatsoever).
And please don't invoke Joanna as the final solution, or I'll have to
counter with Godwin :-)
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-11 17:12
Oh, I would suggest not to disregard the voice and opinions of young
programmers. I will be all the more convincing because I know from
experience that they are organized people who are eager to gain
knowledge.
If we look down on them, we will have the effect of low attendance and
high average age at Pascal conferences.
Take a look at the first-best Web3 programming workshops. They attract
a lot of young people. I go to such workshops and I know that these
young people have very cool ideas and are creative.
No offense, but my workshops organized in a secondary school as part
of a computer science club attracted many more listeners than I
counted at the last world Pascal conference.
It's a pity that this thread is straying from the substantive
discussion. I promise that from now on I will not allow myself to be
provoked and will limit myself to substantive answers to substantive
questions.
I think that my English is not the problem...I think that the topic is
difficult to understand, so I will try to simplify my statements very
much. And I count on your self-education. As I do it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-11 17:41
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 07:12:14 pmNo offense, but my
workshops organized in a secondary school as part of a computer
science club attracted many more listeners than I counted at the last
world Pascal conference.
Professor Stanley Unwin also attracted many listeners.
QuoteIt's a pity that this thread is straying from the substantive
discussion. I promise that from now on I will not allow myself to be
provoked and will limit myself to substantive answers to substantive
questions.
In that case I suggest starting off with the misgivings I raised
earlier.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
JanRoza · 2024-10-11 21:27
QuoteOh I’m sorry, I mistakenly believed that this forum was for
discussing fpc and Lazarus
That is correct!
So accusing someone of using multiple identities has no place in this
forum. Stop this and just talk about Pascal and Lazarus!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
JanRoza · 2024-10-11 21:48
I know you always want to have the last word and apparently are deaf
but can YOU PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-11 23:58
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 07:12:14 pmOh, I would suggest
not to disregard the voice and opinions of young programmers. I will
be all the more convincing because I know from experience that they
are organized people who are eager to gain knowledge.
Unfortunately, you are not convincing. I know from experience that
those who are eager to learn and well-organized are a minority (I deal
with them every day). Young people are well-organized mainly when they
want to party (e.g. "consuming relaxing drinks" with music).
Therefore, your belief about young people's eagerness to acquire
knowledge does not convince me.
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 07:12:14 pmIf we look down on
them, we will have the effect of low attendance and high average age
at Pascal conferences.
No one looks down on young people. We're just being realistic. Some
young people realize they have a lot to learn (and they learn). And
others don't.
Pascal's level of popularity has nothing to do with (some imaginary)
disregard for young people.
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 07:12:14 pmTake a look at the
first-best Web3 programming workshops. They attract a lot of young
people. I go to such workshops and I know that these young people have
very cool ideas and are creative. No offense, but my workshops
organized in a secondary school as part of a computer science club
attracted many more listeners than I counted at the last world Pascal
conference.
How am I supposed to look at it when you haven't written anything
about it before. Besides, how can I verify whether you are telling the
truth about these workshops? You'd have to prove it somehow (not that
it bothers me that much or keeps me up at night).
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 07:12:14 pmI think that the
topic is difficult to understand, so I will try to simplify my
statements very much.
Difficult is taking off the pants by the head
Quote from: Blacha on October 11, 2024, 07:12:14 pmAnd I count on your
self-education. As I do it.
You don't have to count. We are constantly practicing self-education
(imagine, we were doing it even before your encouragement today). And
we are extremely pleased that you are educating yourself too
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-12 07:41
Joanna, Jan, SHUT UP.
If he can make a convincing case for his proposal in English then it
will stand on its merits.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 09:46
Good MAE,
time for another dose of knowledge...
Readers of this thread are certainly wondering - why is it that when
considering the usefulness of blockchain (in the context of Web3) a
hidden desire to promote cryptocurrencies is accused?
I'll answer now. This is due to ignorance, perhaps negative
experiences, but also probably fear of the unknown.
This phenomenon is easy to explain.
The key word for understanding the problem is the word "value".
Blockchain supports some value. And there is no point in hiding it -
most blockchain solutions (topology and protocols) are not able to
handle more than numerical values representing a cryptocurrency
resource. Why is this happening? It's simple - the costs of handling
these values are so high that they do not allow for anything more.
But this technology is developing. Originally, blockchain supported
numerical values, and then pieces of code (smart contract). And for a
long, long time the lengths of the dependencies in the speed -
scalability - security triangle were extended in various ways. But
everything was limited to numerical values that represented
different cryptocurrencies. Because that's all the blockchain allowed.
Today, the word "value" in blockchain technology takes on a completely
new meaning. That is why we can boldly talk about Web3 in the full
sense of the word. In modern blockchain solutions, value is not only
numbers and SC code, but also frontend, backend code and data that are
handled by dAPP web3 (messages, texts, files, databases, libraries and
AI implementations).
I understand the fear and stereotypical view of this technology,
because in fact about 90% of blockchain projects handle numerical
values representing cryptocurrencies, but this is changing. In my
opinion, ICP is a very mature representative of these changes.
So I invite you to participate in this very modern direction of
handling our data. It is they that have VALUE that is worth
protecting.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-12 10:04
I posed specific questions, and have previously reminded you of them:
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 11, 2024, 03:13:12 pmSo you're talking
about a distributed ledger. Where is the bulk data kept? /Surely/ you
aren't relying on peoples' desktop PCs for that, particularly after
it's been running for a while and has accumulated a few petabytes of
state? /Surely/ that will need facilities rented in server farms,
which aren't going to be browser-based (or even browser-capable)
making things like Webasm far less relevant? /Surely/, for the limited
number of target types, native code or an established intermediary
like Java bytecode will make more sense, particularly since some types
of server will already have Java accelerators?
To that I would add that only a relatively small number of people are
interested in Pascal these days- whatever fantasies some might
entertain- and they have their own agenda and interests. Why do you
suggest that it is to your project's advantage for Pascal support to
be added to it?
And none of us has a clue what this "Good MAE" gibberish is supposed
to mean, so I suggest dropping it.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 10:42
You have already received answers to these questions.
I do not want to write "rants", so once again I ask for self-
education.
https://internetcomputer.org/how-it-works
P.S. MarkMLI, I have a request - choose your words in such a way that
the reader does not get the impression that you treat people from
above. Respect others, address them more politely, please. Let's agree
that if the tone of your statements does not change, I will ignore
your posts, because they do not contribute anything substantive
anyway. The fact that this thread is popular has greater value for the
discussed issue. So greetings to the absent readers. Thank you.
P.S.1. I am involved in various international projects, where it is a
good practice to greet project participants taking into account
different time zones. I leave the rest to your intelligence.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-12 12:21
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 11:46:58 amGood MAE,
time for another dose of knowledge...
Good SPAC,
You don't give us any doses of knowledge. In most of your posts, you
flaunt slogans and vague generalities, sprinkled with a hint of
indulgent pity.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 11:46:58 amReaders of this
thread are certainly wondering - why is it that when considering the
usefulness of blockchain (in the context of Web3) a hidden desire to
promote cryptocurrencies is accused?
I'll answer now. This is due to ignorance, perhaps negative
experiences, but also probably fear of the unknown.
This phenomenon is easy to explain.
This is pathetic bullshit and no explanation at all. You absolutely do
not know the people on this forum (they know each other poorly, only
from their statements). Your whining that forum participants: "are
afraid of the unknown, that they had unpleasant experiences, etc." is
a phrase often used by frustrated touts when people do not share
someone's fixation on a particular topic.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 11:46:58 amThe key word for
understanding the problem is the word "value".
O thanks, great priest of secret knowledge, for sharing with us a part
of the light of Your great mind. We, the little ones, would never have
figured this out on our own.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 11:46:58 amBlockchain supports
some value. And there is no point in hiding it - most blockchain
solutions (topology and protocols) are not able to handle more than
numerical values representing a cryptocurrency resource. Why is this
happening? It's simple - the costs of handling these values are so
high that they do not allow for anything more. But this technology is
developing. Originally, blockchain supported numerical values, and
then pieces of code (smart contract). And for a long, long time the
lengths of the dependencies in the speed - scalability - security
triangle were extended in various ways. But everything was limited to
numerical values that represented different cryptocurrencies.
Because that's all the blockchain allowed. Today, the word "value" in
blockchain technology takes on a completely new meaning. That is why
we can boldly talk about Web3 in the full sense of the word. In modern
blockchain solutions, value is not only numbers and SC code, but also
frontend, backend code and data that are handled by dAPP web3
(messages, texts, files, databases, libraries and AI implementations).
It may take many years before blockchain is ready for normal use by
the average Joe. If it were ready for use, the sharks of the IT world
(Google, Facebook, etc.) would already be promoting it heavily.
Meanwhile, they are trying to deal with it themselves.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 11:46:58 amI understand the
fear and stereotypical view of this technology, because in fact about
90% of blockchain projects handle numerical values representing
cryptocurrencies, but this is changing. In my opinion, ICP is a very
mature representative of these changes.
After all, you contradict yourself in this statement. For now, this
only applies to cryptocurrencies. And where can I check that this is
changing? Did you provide a source where I can find credible
information? No? So why the hell are you bothering us here?
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 11:46:58 amSo I invite you to
participate in this very modern direction of handling our data. It is
they that have VALUE that is worth protecting.
The links you provided are some marketing fluff. If it were a specific
project (e.g. on Github) and/or decently prepared articles, maybe
someone would be interested in it. Meanwhile, you act like a tout for
someone else's business. It has no value to society (apart from the
owner of that business).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-12 12:44
Quote from: VisualLab on October 12, 2024, 02:21:55 pmYou don't give
us any doses of knowledge. In most of your posts, you flaunt slogans
and vague generalities, sprinkled with a hint of indulgent pity.
It's bullshit. He's had plenty of opportunity to explain himself, and
while I definitely wouldn't jump on board the "everybody's out to get
us" bandwagon hauled by one particular member of the community I don't
think he's quite on the same planet.
From my- dare I say it- somewhat experienced POV, which has seen its
share of failed projects and outright scams, this reminds me of two
things. The first is Project Xanadu, where Ted Nelson insisted on
dressing up every data structure with a unique made-up name: Enfilade,
Ent, Granfilade (Grand Enfilade), POOMfilade (Permutation Of Order
Matrix Enfilade), Spanfilade (Spanning Enfilade), Switcheroo,
Switcheroonie, tumbler and so on.
The second is some weird Lisp-based operating system whose name
escapes me, which was founded on the belief that if somebody could
offer something elegant enough the World would immediately beat a path
to his door... and the Hell with whether it could run a browser that
allowed people to get at their online banking.
The one thing that has, /possibly/ changed is that these days people
seem happy with the idea of complex systems embedded in what are
effectively VMs inside their browsers, and the potential for them to
engage in peer-to-peer operations. From a security and overall
robustness POV that is an utter nightmare, and while I do concede that
OP is at least aware of GDPR his complete inability to explain himself
does nothing to make me think that he has anything to offer us, or
that we have anything to offer him within the scope of our limited
resources.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-12 12:54
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 12:42:05 pmYou have already
received answers to these questions.
I do not want to write "rants", so once again I ask for self-
education.
https://internetcomputer.org/how-it-works
Can't you do it without a condescending tone? For example:
"Descriptions of technical solutions used in our projects are
available at: ". But you can't (don't want to) abandon your
nature as a marketing tout.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 12:42:05 pmP.S. MarkMLI, I
have a request - choose your words in such a way that the reader does
not get the impression that you treat people from above. Respect
others, address them more politely, please. Let's agree that if the
tone of your statements does not change, I will ignore your posts,
because they do not contribute anything substantive anyway. The fact
that this thread is popular has greater value for the discussed issue.
So greetings to the absent readers. Thank you.
Look at how you worded your first statement. You constantly
intersperse your statements with phrases that contain a condescending
tone. Even the above statement is written in a patronizing (and even
superior) form. So what do you expect in response? That the
participants will make public self-criticism and "apologize for being
alive"? Cool down.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 12:42:05 pmP.S.1. I am
involved in various international projects, where it is a good
practice to greet project participants taking into account different
time zones. I leave the rest to your intelligence.
Look at how you worded your first statement. You constantly
intersperse your statements with phrases that contain a condescending
tone. Even the above statement is written in a patronizing form. So
what do you expect in response? That the participants will make public
self-criticism and "apologize for being alive"?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 13:03
I will try to ask the question from the first post again - what do you
see as potential obstacles to building Web3 solutions with WebAssembly
in the FPC/Lazarus environment?
One of the veiled reasons "our limited resources" - this is a serious
argument.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-12 13:27
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 03:03:51 pmI will try to ask
the question from the first post again - what do you see as potential
obstacles to building Web3 solutions with WebAssembly in the
FPC/Lazarus environment?
You :-)
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-12 13:34
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 12, 2024, 02:44:40 pmQuote from:
VisualLab on October 12, 2024, 02:21:55 pmYou don't give us any doses
of knowledge. In most of your posts, you flaunt slogans and vague
generalities, sprinkled with a hint of indulgent pity.
It's bullshit. He's had plenty of opportunity to explain himself, and
while I definitely wouldn't jump on board the "everybody's out to get
us" bandwagon hauled by one particular member of the community I don't
think he's quite on the same planet.
Of course, this is by no means an "attack on Pascal". OP is just
trying to "strongly encourage" people to get involved with blockchain
technology. In my opinion, this is an intrusive advertisement by
internet portals promoting such solutions. Perhaps he is an employee
of the advertising department of some company, or he is just
completely fixated (crazy) on blockchain technology (kind of
obsession). On various Internet forums one could sometimes (rarely)
come across such attempts to conduct an advertising campaign among
participants. In any case, it's a bit like spamming.
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 12, 2024, 02:44:40 pmFrom my- dare I
say it- somewhat experienced POV, which has seen its share of failed
projects and outright scams, this reminds me of two things. The first
is Project Xanadu, where Ted Nelson insisted on dressing up every data
structure with a unique made-up name: Enfilade, Ent, Granfilade (Grand
Enfilade), POOMfilade (Permutation Of Order Matrix Enfilade),
Spanfilade (Spanning Enfilade), Switcheroo, Switcheroonie, tumbler and
so on.
The second is some weird Lisp-based operating system whose name
escapes me, which was founded on the belief that if somebody could
offer something elegant enough the World would immediately beat a path
to his door... and the Hell with whether it could run a browser that
allowed people to get at their online banking.
This type of approach can certainly be found in other technical
fields. Between the initial idea of solving a problem and its
implementation, there is a chasm in which many projects have perished.
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 12, 2024, 02:44:40 pmThe one thing that
has, /possibly/ changed is that these days people seem happy with the
idea of complex systems embedded in what are effectively VMs inside
their browsers, and the potential for them to engage in peer-to-peer
operations. From a security and overall robustness POV that is an
utter nightmare, and while I do concede that OP is at least aware of
GDPR his complete inability to explain himself does nothing to make me
think that he has anything to offer us, or that we have anything to
offer him within the scope of our limited resources.
When it comes to applications running in browsers, I have a similar
opinion as you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
wizzwizz4 · 2024-10-12 13:40
Quote from: VisualLab on October 12, 2024, 02:21:55 pmIf it were ready
for use, the sharks of the IT world (Google, Facebook, etc.) would
already be promoting it heavily.
They already are! Git is widely promoted by Microsoft (via GitHub) –
though Facebook uses Mercurial, and Google's doing its own thing. So-
called "blockchain technology" (Merkle trees / hash DAGs, SHA-2,
ECDSA) is genuinely useful in certain areas.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 03:03:51 pmI will try to ask
the question from the first post again - what do you see as potential
obstacles to building Web3 solutions with WebAssembly in the
FPC/Lazarus environment?
The established fact that so-called Web3 is completely useless. All of
the necessary infrastructure is already in place, but nobody has used
it in this way because nobody wants to. This hurdle is rather
difficult to surmount. Pascal isn't a faddish language, so you
shouldn't be surprised that its community is fad-averse. If you want
easy marks, go bother the Rust people. If you want to educate
yourself, listen to others (ideally including those who speak in a
manner you consider disrespectful), and try to ensure you understand
the meaning of your own sentences.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 11:46:58 amBut everything was
limited to numerical values that represented different
cryptocurrencies. Because that's all the blockchain allowed. Today,
the word "value" in blockchain technology takes on a completely new
meaning. That is why we can boldly talk about Web3 in the full sense
of the word. In modern blockchain solutions, value is not only numbers
and SC code, but also frontend, backend code and data that are handled
by dAPP web3 (messages, texts, files, databases, libraries and AI
implementations).
Reading this, I don't think you understand what Web3 is. I'd suggest
remedying that before you try to introduce it to others.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 13:40
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 12, 2024, 03:27:26 pmYou :-)
MarkMLl
OK, but I care more about organizational and technical reasons,
because unfortunately, looking through the prism of Thomas Kuhn's
theory, most of us (including you) on this forum are the brakes on the
development of modern technologies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-12 13:43
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 03:40:54 pmOK, but I care more
about organizational and technical reasons, because unfortunately,
looking through the prism of Thomas Kuhn's theory, most of us
(including you) on this forum are the brakes on the development of
modern technologies.
Still you, I'm afraid :-)
If you can't explain what you're actually trying to do, and can't- or
refuse to- provide succinct answers to specific questions, then the
whole thing's a non-starter.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 14:06
Quote from: wizzwizz4 on October 12, 2024, 03:40:01 pmThe established
fact that so-called Web3 is completely useless. All of the necessary
infrastructure is already in place, but nobody has used it in this way
because nobody wants to. This hurdle is rather difficult to surmount.
Pascal isn't a faddish language, so you shouldn't be surprised that
its community is fad-averse. If you want easy marks, go bother the
Rust people. If you want to educate yourself, listen to others
(ideally including those who speak in a manner you consider
disrespectful), and try to ensure you understand the meaning of your
own sentences.
Ooo, thank you very much for this statement.
The fact is that the term Web3 was (and still is) overused. And your
statement refers to these phenomena. That is why I strongly emphasized
in the first post - I am not interested in hybrid solutions (the link
you sent describes just such). I am interested in pure Web3 in the
full sense of the word - 100% code and data on-chain!
An example of Web3 abuse - maintaining a concatenated value on-chain
while simultaneously referring to the metadata of this value
maintained on a regular centralized, easy-to-attack server. After the
power in the server room goes out, we are left with a meaningless
token.
Another example of Web3 abuse - a smart contract maintaining on-chain,
e.g. text messages, to which we have access via intermediary solutions
that are off-chain. And if we add an off-chain frontend to this, it is
easy to have problems.
That is why I emphasize again - I am interested in 100% on-chain Web3
solutions. End of story.
P.S. BTW, Rust community is already actively programming in ICP.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
wizzwizz4 · 2024-10-12 14:41
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 04:06:29 pmI am interested in
pure Web3 in the full sense of the word - 100% code and data on-chain!
Either there's no such thing, or that site contains plenty of
examples. I'm not entirely sure what distinction you're trying to
make; and I'm not sure you are, either.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 04:06:29 pmP.S. BTW, Rust
community is already actively programming in ICP.
The ICP community is actively programming in Rust. (This is because
they're both faddish things: it's not because of the actual merits of
either system.) That's not the same thing as the Rust community
actively programming in ICP: the most downloaded "Internet Computer
Protocol" crate has nothing to do with ICP (even though faddish things
tend to use wasteful CI pipelines and badly-written Dockerfiles,
heavily inflating their download statistics relative to more practical
crates').
I suggest you focus on the merits of your proposal, rather than its
alleged popularity. That should start by clearly explaining what your
proposal is. What are you suggesting should be "built" in FPC, which
might have barriers? This is a four-page thread now, and I'm still no
wiser.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 15:17
Quote from: wizzwizz4 on October 12, 2024, 04:41:31 pmQuote from:
Blacha on October 12, 2024, 04:06:29 pmI am interested in pure Web3 in
the full sense of the word - 100% code and data on-chain!Either
there's no such thing, or that site contains plenty of examples. I'm
not entirely sure what distinction you're trying to make; and I'm not
sure you are, either.
To avoid ping-pong statements, please do a small experiment: create a
SPA (without backend, smart contract), e.g. using any framework. The
whole thing should weigh about 10Mb. And then try to embed it in a
chosen blockchain and run it in a browser. Review the costs incurred
for such hosting and share your experiences with us. Then you will
know what I am really talking about when I use the phrase "pure Web3"
or "100% on-chain".
I'm not interested in Rust. I care that Pascal does not fade into
oblivion. I care that the FPC Lazarus environment (to which I owe so
much) is successfully used to create code in modern applications
(including the Web3 blockchain ones).
And I will honestly admit that I have less faith that any of us,
active participants in this discussion, will make a breakthrough in
this matter. I believe in younger programmers who may read this thread
with attention and curiosity, do not engage in verbal jousting, are
not afraid to learn new things and may see the potential in what I
present here.
If they delve into the issue a little more, they will see what I see -
the FCP/Lazarus environment has made such progress that it has a
strong basis to try to exist in creating code in the Web3 area.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
wizzwizz4 · 2024-10-12 15:59
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 05:17:21 pmTo avoid ping-pong
statements, please do a small experiment: create a SPA (without
backend, smart contract), e.g. using any framework. The whole thing
should weigh about 10Mb. And then try to embed it in a chosen
blockchain and run it in a browser. Review the costs incurred for such
hosting and share your experiences with us. Then you will know what I
am really talking about when I use the phrase "pure Web3" or "100% on-
chain".
switching.software is hosted on Codeberg Pages, via a git repository.
Its homepage (a SPA, providing a filterable list of popular services)
weighs around 180kB (1.5Mbits), though that's excessively wasteful and
I was planning to cut it down when I had a moment. It costs the
project nothing, since Codeberg is covering the hosting costs (though
it's polite to donate to Codeberg if you make much use of their
services), and Digitalcourage is covering the domain name. My
experience is generally positive, though I got overwhelmed by all the
requests for new entries and have stepped down for now.
Something more sophisticated, like a forum site, would require a
backend server. There are, as far as I know, no barriers to writing a
CGI application in Pascal, and committing its source code to a git
"blockchain" for deployment. You can even use git to store whatever
data; though you have to make sure the file format is appropriate for
the diffing algorithm if you want to use it as a "decentralised source
of truth" or whatever.
If this doesn't meet your definition of "Web3", then please explain
what you mean, and how it solves a real problem that actual people
have.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 17:38
The project looks really cool. Congratulations!
Having habits from the 90s, I appreciate the effort to minimize the
size of the code.
The page you presented is a great example of Web1 (all data comes from
the server, and the application itself does not interact with the
user). You don't have to worry about validating the entered data,
because you do it manually. If you introduced the possibility of
interaction with the user in the service (e.g. the possibility of
entering an opinion, rating or comments), it would be a representative
of the Web2 generation. But then the matter gets a bit more
complicated, because you have to take care of the security of the
service (data validation, http headers, open ports, patching the
software that supports the service and many, many others). The
probability of potential hacking increases. The matter gets even more
complicated if you run the service not for hobby purposes, but, for
example, for the needs of a medical entity. And let's assume that this
entity deals with psychiatric therapies and treatment. And let's add,
for spice, that 20% of the patients are people from a nearby estate of
lawyers and very wealthy people. And then it stops being funny. In my
opinion, every data requires the utmost care in its protection, so
taking care of it within the Web2 solutions took me a really long
time, especially since we maintained our own servers for such a
service. But I survived.
Let's start in order:
Decentralization - it's great that you've come to an agreement with a
hosting and domain name provider, but imagine that at some point you
get information that, for example, their business is going bankrupt or
has a failure of the main and emergency power supply at the same time
(there are cases when someone does not check the installation surge
protectors), a serious hack into the system, etc. Your service ceases
to exist (at least for some time).
In Web3 100% on-chain, such a situation does not exist.The principle
of necessary knowledge - during a coffee break, hosting service
providers' technicians read the medical records of the patients of the
medical entity stored on the servers. Just kidding! They are so
swamped with work that they do not have time. But they can do it.
In Web3 100% on-chain, such a situation does not exist. You and only
you regulate the access rights to the data. There are no
intermediaries or snoopers! The data is natively encrypted, and the
consensus mechanism guards, among other things, the access rights to
this data.Exclusive rights to value - let's assume that you have
written a great programming library, a piece of code, etc. If you want
to distribute this piece of code, you create a repository, make it
public, describe it with a license, or create an API through which
there is access to the functionality of your code. A lot of work and
guarding the space.
In Web3 100% on-chain, such a situation does not exist. Of course, you
can make the code repository public (and it is done), but why not
embed this code in a blockchain canister and make its API available to
other canisters? If the original Tetris code had been placed in Web3,
Alexey Pajitnov could be in a completely different reality today.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-12 21:30
Still on the subject of decentralization...
I will quote a fragment of the article (The Disappearance of an
Internet Domain):
"Whatever happens, the warning for future tech founders is clear: Be
careful when picking your top-level domain. Physical history is never
as separate from our digital future as we like to think."
I recommend this article. It makes you think...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
wizzwizz4 · 2024-10-12 23:10
Everyone who's cloned the repo still has it, even if the world ends.
"On-chain" systems rely on some DHT remaining accessible, which it
isn't if your ISP fails. Single "decentralised" point of failure,
versus git's truly distributed nature. Distributed >
decentralised.That is not how computers work. Of course others can
observe your "Web3" traffic! How else do you request pages? Even Tor
isn't fully private (though it's substantially better than most
systems).This is also not how computers work. If the code can be
executed, it can be read, so it can be copied. If it can't be copied,
it can't be read. DRM/TPM is a legal fiction, not something that
actually exists / can exist.The number of torrents with no seeds is in
the millions. The number of TLDs that have shut down can be counted on
the fingers of one average human hand. (Four, plus oz. which was moved
to oz.au. rather than fully removed.) I'm not aware of any gTLDs ever
closing. What makes you think any particular "Web3" thing will outlast
the internet's basic critical infrastructure?
What you're describing cannot be achieved in Pascal, because it cannot
be achieved. Either you misunderstand what "Web3" is, or "Web3" is
vapourware.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 07:38:06 pmThe matter gets
even more complicated if you run the service not for hobby purposes,
but, for example, for the needs of a medical entity.
This is the textbook example of when not to use anything resembling a
blockchain: you need repudiability, among other things. (You wouldn't
want to store this data in git.) Please, learn what this stuff
actually is before you try to use it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-13 00:51
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 07:38:06 pmDecentralization -
it's great that you've come to an agreement with a hosting and domain
name provider, but imagine that at some point you get information
that, for example, their business is going bankrupt or has a failure
of the main and emergency power supply at the same time (there are
cases when someone does not check the installation surge protectors),
a serious hack into the system, etc. Your service ceases to exist (at
least for some time).
In Web3 100% on-chain, such a situation does not exist.This would be
true if 100% on chain would be possible, but it's not. First any
program to be useful needs to react to inputs from the real world and
produce output effecting the real world. For example, if I want to
order something online, I need a way to place my order, and as a
response to that, some machines or workers in a distribution center
needs to start packing my order. It doesn't matter how long your
"code" survives if the respective real world infrastructure is missing
to make the code do anything, it will just be abandonware like any
other software is.
There is not a single online service that would benefit from being on
the blockchain, because in the end they require some backend systems
to feed in and outputs to the chain. And if you must host a backend
service, you don't need to put parts on the blockchain.
Even more so the blockchain itself is not decentralized. Technically
it is, but logically the chain acts as one entity, so all the
information is centralized. So for example if there is a vulnerability
in the chain, everyone globally can exploit it. And this has happend
multiple times. Whole chains broke down because through
vulnerabilities attackers could completely exfiltrate all the funds
stored in these chains.
Even more so, we know that with ETH, the Ethereum Foundation has total
control over the chain and can at any point in time do a rollback,
which they have done in the past. So by putting your data on the ETH
chain, you are completely exposed to them and their decisions. But if
you put your app on your own systems, you are in control. Imagine
having a buisness and you make a lot of money, then the Foundation
decides to make a rollback and you just lost all your transactions for
a month. Great prospects right?
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 07:38:06 pmThe principle of
necessary knowledge - during a coffee break, hosting service
providers' technicians read the medical records of the patients of the
medical entity stored on the servers. Just kidding! They are so
swamped with work that they do not have time. But they can do it.
In Web3 100% on-chain, such a situation does not exist. You and only
you regulate the access rights to the data. There are no
intermediaries or snoopers! The data is natively encrypted, and the
consensus mechanism guards, among other things, the access rights to
this data.
All the data on the chain is public knowledge, you can't have access
controls on data hosted on the chain. Any form of access control must
per definition be performed off chain, e.g. by using end-to-end
encrypted data and sharing the keys with other users. You could do the
authentication of said users over the chain, but you could also do it
using classical PKI or web of trust, or any other mechanism.
There is nothing about blockchain that enhances privacy. To the
contrary, the fact that every transaction is open is a huge privacy
leak. E.g. you don't need to know my medical records, if you can see
on chain that I regularly interact with the wallet of some cancer
clinic you can deduce that I or someone I know might be suffering from
cancer.
So having transactions open to everyone is a huge privacy risk. Web3
is the absolute nightmare for anyone interested in privacy. This is
why pretty much every european data protection supervisory bodies,
like the BfDI here in germany advise against blockchain based
solutions for personal data.
Quote from: Blacha on October 12, 2024, 07:38:06 pmExclusive rights to
value - let's assume that you have written a great programming
library, a piece of code, etc. If you want to distribute this piece of
code, you create a repository, make it public, describe it with a
license, or create an API through which there is access to the
functionality of your code. A lot of work and guarding the space.
In Web3 100% on-chain, such a situation does not exist. Of course, you
can make the code repository public (and it is done), but why not
embed this code in a blockchain canister and make its API available to
other canisters? If the original Tetris code had been placed in Web3,
Alexey Pajitnov could be in a completely different reality today.And
who enforces these rights? If I just take some work thats not mine and
put it on the chain, do I gain rights for it? You cannot infer
ownership from technical association. You always need some authority
that decides which chain, and which data on the chain is authentic.
And if you have such an authority you can use different solutions like
PKIs and have said auhtority issue certificates and keep a ledger.
Conceptually blockchain does not add any value to any services except
maybe financial transactions. And even this only to a very limited
degree. Because besides the fact that Blockchain does not solve a
single issue, not even the ones you outlined above, it creates a whole
bunch of new issues. Inputs to the chain can only happen through
transactions, and each transaction costs money. At the time of writing
the gas fees for ETH are 24 USD. Meaning any time you interact with a
program on the chain you have to pay 24 USD. Made a typo, easy
correcting that typo just costs you another 24 USD. Just let me buy a
pair of scissors of amazon for 5 USD and add 24 USD transaction costs
on top... What a bargain.
Second is the speed. ETH has an average speed of 15 transactions per
second right now. With a maximum transaction size of around 1 MB
meaning you have a whopping 15MB/s speed, for the whole Ethereum
Network. The SSD in my PC can do 3000 MB/s so my PC can process 200x
the amount of data locally than the Ethereum network can do globally.
And it doesn't take 24 USD per input to do so.
Lastly as I said the chain is logically not decentralized. All
transactions need to go through the same chain, and eth gas prices are
dependent on the total load of the chain. So transactioncosts here go
up globally. Meaning if I want to buy a coffee here in Germany with
eth, and there is some event in let's say Australia that causes an
unusual load on the network, the transaction costs for my coffee go up
even though it has nothing to do with the event in Australia.
Because the chain is a central entity, your business on the chain is
suddenly effected by completely unrelated events just because they
share the same chain.
On the other hand my hosting costs here in Germany don't go up because
some hoster in Australia gets high demand
Web3 does not work. Theres a reason why you can't buy any commodities
with crypto currency, and why no major buisness has moved to chain.
There are solutions to these problems, but they all include taking
data off the chain, processing them by a third party and either having
only trust anchors on the chain, or having the information being
processed onto the chain. Which yes indeed solves these problems, but
makes the whole idea of using the chain completele meaningless.
My favorite term of 2021 was "private block chain" where companies
would solve these issues by hosting their own private chain in their
own data centers.
For the chain to be useful, you need to not use the chain. So skip the
middle man and just don't use the chain to begin with[/list]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 01:32
Quote from: wizzwizz4 on October 13, 2024, 01:10:59 amEveryone who's
cloned the repo still has it, even if the world ends. "On-chain"
systems rely on some DHT remaining accessible, which it isn't if your
ISP fails. Single "decentralised" point of failure, versus git's truly
distributed nature. Distributed > decentralised.........
What you're describing cannot be achieved in Pascal, because it cannot
be achieved. Either you misunderstand what "Web3" is, or "Web3" is
vapourware.
Damn, you've got it all mixed up.
Let's start with the fact that the concepts of Web1, Web2 and Web3 are
closely related to the World Wide Web. I'm sorry, but I have the
impression that you either didn't read or didn't understand the
article I linked earlier.
I also have the impression that you don't understand blockchain
technology. Blockchain is not just decentralization. It's also (or
maybe above all) encryption and a consensus mechanism. There are many
more of these features, but for the purposes of our discussion these
should be enough.
The human factor has a key impact on all the Internet applications you
mentioned, which is unfortunately unreliable. Blockchain with its
features eliminates these imperfections.
And the git you mentioned. I really appreciate this tool, I use it
every day, but replication and code cloning have little to do with the
decentralization that Web3 guarantees. Git decentralization ends on
Friday with the project manager bombarded by young programmers with
requests to approve the code to close the project milestone.
If you have a git repository server at home and your ISP goes down due
to a failure, no one will have access to that repository. OK, let's
assume that your friend has previously cloned your repository and
started working on that code. If you are working on the same project,
someone has to approve the changes. No more decentralization.
However, in the case of Web3, if the same ISP does not provide you
with fiber optic internet at home, then everyone will have access to
Web3 resources except you. But wait, wait! You still have internet on
your phone! In that case, you also have access to Web3. Basically, you
have access to Web3 everywhere, wherever you are online. You will not
even know which node you have connected to (the closest one). Do you
understand the difference now?
Do the blockchain experiment I mentioned to you earlier, then you will
know from practice how it works. Then you will also see how close this
technology is to FPC/Lazarus in its capabilities.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 01:58
Quote from: Warfley on October 13, 2024, 02:51:56 amThis would be true
if 100% on chain would be possible, but it's not.
This website/frontend is 100% on-chain: https://6ec2p-paaaa-aaaal-
ai45q-cai.icp0.io/ We started the experiment a year ago. In Q2 2025,
we will add active elements to this page, and then the backend to
conduct further tests.
The frontend and backend of the next dApp project are ready for a test
upload to the blockchain. The code is currently being reviewed.
I am tempted to prepare something in FPC and upload it to the
blockchain. I have to think about it and find time. But it can be
done.
So please don't tell me it's impossible.
The problems of some projects from the past that you mentioned were
caused precisely by the fact that they consisted of on-chain and off-
chain parts. It was this second element of the ecosystem that allowed
for unauthorized management of value in the block. I reassure those
reading for the second (probably third) time - such solutions do not
interest me! If Web3 is only 100% on-chain.
Let's do an experiment - I invite you to contact me via the
decentralized OpenChat messenger, which is 100% on-chain. The task is
as follows - extract files and photos from the blockchain that I keep
there and to which only I have access. Wait! Extract a photo from the
blockchain that I can send you in this messenger for testing. Let me
know when you're done.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-13 03:46
Warfley thanks for the informative post.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Seenkao · 2024-10-13 04:53
Почему эта тема ещё открыта?
Если человеку интересно продвинуть Web3, то он не будет писать посты,
а будет писать код.
Данный человек не предоставил ни строчки кода.
Либо закройте тему, либо просто не отвечайте ни чего ему.
---------------------------
Google translate:
Why is this thread still open?
If a person is interested in promoting Web3, he won't write posts,
he'll write code.
This person hasn't provided a single line of code.
Either close the thread or just don't respond to him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-13 07:27
Quote from: Joanna on October 13, 2024, 05:46:03 amWarfley thanks for
the informative post.
I agree (rarely happens :-)
The one situation where I've concluded that a blockchain can be useful
is notarisation: a formal statement from somebody that they have
witnessed something, for example a marriage.
But "the map is not the territory", and in particular a record that
somebody has transferred a certain amount of money to somebody else is
meaningless without some way for money to actually be transferred:
even the big banks shuffle a (relatively small) amount of actual cash
around to keep their relative standing correct.
And if we consider "Web3" for storage and processing: how do we
connect to it? It is by no means unknown for the top-level DNS servers
to get themselves in a screwed-up state, and if machines connect to
each other purely on the basis of IP addresses they're vulnerable to
those changing at arbitrary times: a particular risk for small
businesses using relatively cheap routers and non-specialist ISPs.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-13 09:17
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 03:58:48 amThis
website/frontend is 100% on-chain: https://6ec2p-paaaa-aaaal-
ai45q-cai.icp0.io/
No it's not, the chain cannot provide an HTTP server. This website is
hosted on some server in some datacenter. Whoever has access to the
server can change the code of the website that is delivered to your
browser without changing anything on the chain. This is a completely
normal Web1 website (as it is completely non interactive) provided by
a normal HTTP server read out by a normal HTTP client (the browser).
Whoever controls either of these enteties controlls the website, and
the chain does nothing to enhance or prevent this.
There is no thing as a 100% on chain app, becuase to interact with the
chain you always need an off chain mechanism. And who controls this
mechanism controls the data in transit. The only way to not have this
is if every user of this app would have a local copy of the whole
chain to verify that they have the correct and most up to date
version. The ETH chain is a few hundred GB if I remember correctly.
Also you can't just fetch it from one place, you need to fetch it from
different miners to verify the consensus, so to have a representative
sample you'd need at least 10-30 copies of that chain.
Personally I do not have e few terabytes to spare, so I do not see
that as an option
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 09:51
The writer about ETH has worked hard writing, but unfortunately, he
describes the prehistory of blockchain development. He doesn't know
what he's writing, so he writes what he knows. ETH had a huge impact
on progress, but today it's not worth analyzing it in the context of
Web3. Let's not focus on prehistory, please, because evolution is
ongoing, and the revolution is happening here and now.
Let's understand this through an analogy - talking about ETH in the
context of Web3 is like talking about spam problems while describing
sendmail from the times when it was the only one available.
Analyzing the speed of ETH and SSD is so incompatible that I'm
surprised that someone wasted their time on it.
I think the biggest problem with this discussion is its ideological
nature. The matter would look completely different if the discussants
knew what they were talking about. That's why I encourage you to test
the latest possibilities and learn about modern technological
solutions in the blockchain area yourself. It doesn't hurt.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 10:21
Quote from: Warfley on October 13, 2024, 11:17:54 amNo it's not, the
chain cannot provide an HTTP server.
Are you 100% sure that this page is hosted on some server?
If so, then you are passing judgement too easily, but if not, well,
I'll explain. The domain address of this page consists of a part
describing the location of the code in the chain (reference to the
blockchain canister). All http traffic (in this technology, it is
handled by so-called boundary nodes, whose task is to process, among
others, http_request, domain analysis, etc.). This is a huge advantage
of this solution, because thanks to it, the smart contract can use the
API not only in the chain, but also outside of it. We use this in the
application for tax settlements, asking the central bank about
exchange rates. Over time, these boundary nodes will no longer be
needed. In fact, DNSs will also no longer be useful, considering the
dynamic development of browsing engines. But that's the future.
You are not reading carefully what I wrote, so I will repeat - the
page is just a frontend without active elements because it was
launched for testing. If you would like to follow our activity in this
blockchain canister, you can do so here:
https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/canister/6ec2p-paaaa-aaaal-
ai45q-cai
Don't be offended, but if you write about miners (PoW) in the context
of Web3 technology and many, many other modern blockchain solutions,
then you really have no idea what's going on now. You've stopped at
some very distant stage of learning about this technology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-13 12:18
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 12:21:43 pmThe domain address
of this page consists of a part describing the location of the code in
the chain (reference to the blockchain canister). All http traffic (in
this technology, it is handled by so-called boundary nodes, whose task
is to process, among others, http_request, domain analysis, etc.).
This is a huge advantage of this solution, because thanks to it, the
smart contract can use the API not only in the chain, but also outside
of it. We use this in the application for tax settlements, asking the
central bank about exchange rates. Over time, these boundary nodes
will no longer be needed. In fact, DNSs will also no longer be useful,
considering the dynamic development of browsing engines. But that's
the future.
You are not reading carefully what I wrote, so I will repeat - the
page is just a frontend without active elements because it was
launched for testing. If you would like to follow our activity in this
blockchain canister, you can do so here:
https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/canister/6ec2p-paaaa-aaaal-
ai45q-cai
Don't be offended, but if you write about miners (PoW) in the context
of Web3 technology and many, many other modern blockchain solutions,
then you really have no idea what's going on now. You've stopped at
some very distant stage of learning about this technology.
So I was right. You are incredibly fixated (obsessed) on blockchain
(although maybe not necessarily cryptocurrencies) and you are
promoting this solution (insistently). The problem is that you
approach it with religious reverence. You need to have a certain
distance and a bit of healthy skepticism towards all
scientific/technical solutions. If only to be able to improve these
solutions.
Your insinuations that the participants of this forum are
technologically backward are just nonsense and malice. Active
participation of a given person in the development of blockchain
technology does not indicate great computer knowledge. Blockchain is
only a small part of computer science, not the most important one at
all. There are more interesting, more serious and perhaps more future-
oriented branches of computer science.
Perhaps blockchain would be the number 1 topic in the media today,
perhaps it would even be heavily financed by investors. But he was
very unlucky that a few years ago, large corporations found a
favorite: AI.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-13 14:22
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 12:21:43 pmAre you 100% sure
that this page is hosted on some server?
Yes it is, the domain resolves to the IP
2a00:fb01:400:200:5000:eeff:fe3d:aa0d which is pointing to a server or
datacenter in Zurich Switzerland. I can put this address into an HTTP
client which does not know anything about the blockchain like curl, to
fetch the page.
Meaning whoever is in control of that server in Switzerland can send
any data to my browser. Chain or not.
Also I love that you use HTTPs, which is a centralized trust root
based on the certificate storage of your browser, probably chrome, and
thereby curated by and under full control of Google.
So much about decentrality.
Imagine having a "decentralized" reliable root of trust, as blockchain
people always claim, but needing to rely on a hierachical PKI to use
it :j
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 15:26
WOW! I really like your inquisitiveness.
Let me ask you a question - how do you imagine the hidden form of the
Web3 frontend (which you probably expect)? That's not what the
frontend is for... Yes, you can look at the frontend code, but
modifying and replacing it without a private key in Web3 is
impossible. Try it.
I'm not surprised that HTTP gateway works very well in Web3, because
it is one of the fundamental elements of ICP. Canisters in the
blockchain can be called in two ways: via HTTP request or API. And
let's agree - as long as there is any piece of Web2 on the Internet,
both ways will be valid. I think that in time API will dominate in
Web3. But there is still a long way to go.
Research the topic further, you are doing very well.
I will suggest two interesting materials to read as part of your
research:
Boundary Nodes (recently, as a result of the DAO community vote, the
boundary node topology has become even more decentralized) and the
HTTP gateway protocol specification.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 16:10
Quote from: Warfley on October 13, 2024, 04:22:41 pmAlso I love that
you use HTTPs, which is a centralized trust root based on the
certificate storage of your browser, probably chrome, and thereby
curated by and under full control of Google.
So much about decentrality.
Please, don't write such nonsense in the "Networking and Web
Programming" section... Read about Let's Encrypt, which is used by
everyone who doesn't want to be screwed by the collusion of the
largest certificate providers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
wizzwizz4 · 2024-10-13 17:10
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 03:32:34 amGit
decentralization ends on Friday with the project manager bombarded by
young programmers with requests to approve the code to close the
project milestone. […] If you are working on the same project, someone
has to approve the changes. No more decentralization.
In blockchain jargon: git does not define a consensus protocol. You've
picked a deliberately-centralised one (have one person decide what
gets fetched / pushed), and are complaining that it involves
centralisation. This is known as a "straw argument". Many alternative
protocols are available. These can be implemented in "smart
contracts", stored in the .git/hooks directory. You can even have "on-
chain smart contracts", by setting the appropriate configuration to
store the hooks in the repository, though this leaves you vulnerable
to arbitrary code execution.
You have not, so far, given an example of something that "Web3" can
do, that cannot be done more cheaply and more easily using git,
BitTorrent, a web server, and a mailing list. Nor have you described
how "Web3" is meaningfully different from Web1 or Web2.
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 12:21:43 pmThe domain address
of this page consists of a part describing the location of the code in
the chain (reference to the blockchain canister). All http traffic (in
this technology, it is handled by so-called boundary nodes, whose task
is to process, among others, http_request, domain analysis, etc.).
Does the blockchain guarantee that I've actually implemented this
protocol, in any way? I don't see how it could. So if I can control
(your view of) icp0.io.'s DNS responses, I can make its subdomains
point to whatever servers I like, returning whatever pages I like.
Ultimately, that's as easy as changing your router config. Failing
that, I could just go to Zurich and give the datacentre a visit: this
system's integrity depends on the physical security of that building.
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 03:32:34 amThe human factor
has a key impact on all the Internet applications you mentioned, which
is unfortunately unreliable. Blockchain with its features eliminates
these imperfections.
No, it just ignores them, pretending the problems will go away if we
just add enough automation – but they're not human problems: they're
more fundamental than that. "Boundary nodes" blow a massive hole in
the whole scheme, for example, and it's impossible to eliminate their
ilk. (Even if I can't disrupt the integrity, I can always take out the
availability – and I can usually subvert confidentiality, too, unless
the message is physically kept away from me.) To the extent it ignores
this reality, "Web3" is fundamentally non-serious.
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 06:10:32 pmRead about Let's
Encrypt, which is used by everyone who doesn't want to be screwed by
the collusion of the largest certificate providers.
Let's Encrypt is also centralised. That's quite fundamental to how
Certificate Authorities work. (The underlying certificate system isn't
centralised, but I'm not aware of any browsers that use Web of Trust
or the like.)
If you're going to say things like “He doesn't know what he's writing,
so he writes what he knows.” and “you really have no idea what's going
on now. You've stopped at some very distant stage of learning about
this technology.”, my advice would be to make sure those criticisms
don't apply to yourself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-13 17:21
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 06:10:32 pmPlease, don't write
such nonsense in the "Networking and Web Programming" section... Read
about Let's Encrypt, which is used by everyone who doesn't want to be
screwed by the collusion of the largest certificate providers.
I know exactly what Let's encrypt is, I use their certificates myself.
But you know that the endpoint verification is made by the browser,
using a set of self signed root certificates, which are provided by
the browser vendors. So Google, Mozilla and Apple decide which CAs are
trusted and which aren't. If Google decided today that they don't
trust Let's Encrypt anymore, your TLS certificate is useless
Blockchain is a trust infrastructure. The fact that you need another
trust infrastructure on top of it to use it shows eveything you need
to know about how well it works in establishing trust
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 17:57
I give up.
There are so many contradictions in what you wrote that I would have
to spend a lot of time trying to untangle it. Especially since you are
stretching reality a lot. I have provided a lot of links, references
and simple examples that an attentive and not negatively inclined
reader will use to independently analyze the information.
You are not doing this analysis because... you don't want to. You are
adding incoherent pieces taken out of context that fit your arguments
in such a way that they sound as credible as possible. I have the
impression that you are looking for information that you can use to
manipulate less aware readers.
I am not so determined to show the lack of coherence in your
statements. My goal here is not to explain the absurdities. It would
be a waste of my time and the time of my readers. And I assure you
that Web3 will manage without you and your SSD drive. End of story.
I will patiently wait for substantive and coherent arguments.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
zeljko · 2024-10-13 18:00
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 07:57:21 pmI give up.
Thanks
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-13 18:42
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 07:57:21 pmYou are not doing
this analysis because... you don't want to. You are adding incoherent
pieces taken out of context that fit your arguments in such a way that
they sound as credible as possible. I have the impression that you are
looking for information that you can use to manipulate less aware
readers.
You were the one who claimed to have 100% on chain apps running, yet
the example you gave required an off chain webserver to be connected
to, where the trust into the connection is established through TLS,
which is also running off-chain. You just have a very interesting
definition of 100% on chain, if the most important part of the whole
app , the thing that makes it actually usable,is not running on chain.
It's like claiming you have a 100% renewable energy powered train,
because the lights and air conditioning in the train are running on
renewable energy, while the cart itself is moved by a Diesel engine.
I'm working in identity architecture, and I know people like you.
Every other day someone comes and says the revolutionized the world of
identity ecosystems through blockchain. But when you look at it
closer, it either is completely vulnerable to fraud, or requires an
external trust framework like a PKI to function.
You cannot establish trust in anything outside the blockchain from the
blockchain. Which makes it completely useless as a trust
infrastructure.
Just tell me, why do you use a TLS certificate? If the root of trust
is the chain, shouldn't the chain be used to verify the authenticity
and integrity of the data? Why need a seperate PKI to establish the
trust in the data?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-13 18:57
In short: "The only constraint on his armwaving about holes in his
designs is that his fingertips can't exceed the speed of light."
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 19:05
Quote from: Warfley on October 13, 2024, 08:42:20 pmYou were the one
who claimed to have 100% on chain apps running, yet the example you
gave required an off chain webserver to be connected to, where the
trust into the connection is established through TLS, which is also
running off-chain.
What is the difference between an HTTP server and an HTTP/API gateway
in your opinion? Or, analogously, is a proxy server designed to host
content?
P.S. You have no idea who I am and you have no right to judge me based
on your assumptions. If we met in real life in the environment I work
in, I am sure you would consider my words and recognize my formal
authority. I respect every person and I do not dare to judge anyone
here or personalize my opinions, so I kindly ask you to do the same. I
can criticize the opinions presented here, but your identity is the
highest value to me. Howgh.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-13 19:26
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 09:05:15 pmP.S. You have no
idea who I am and you have no right to judge me based on your
assumptions. If we met in real life in the environment I work in, I am
sure you would consider my words and recognize my formal authority. I
respect every person and I do not dare to judge anyone here or
personalize my opinions, so I kindly ask you to do the same. I can
criticize the opinions presented here, but your identity is the
highest value to me. Howgh.
You started off talking rubbish, presumably expecting to dazzle us
with your command of new technology. We collectively kicked you until
you tried to explain yourself in English, and failed to make a
convincing case. The fact that you have "formal authority" simply
means that the people who endowed you are utterly clueless. Nos da.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-13 20:35
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 09:05:15 pmWhat is the
difference between an HTTP server and an HTTP/API gateway in your
opinion? Or, analogously, is a proxy server designed to host content?
From a trust perspective yes. As a user I cannot distinguish if the
data that is sent to my browser was generated from a Blockchain, read
out of a Database, or generated on the fly by chatGPT. So I trust the
content of the website because I trust the endpoint usually secured
through TLS.
How do I know that this website is the genuine Lazarusforum? Because I
trust the TLS infrastructure that enables an end to end encrypted
channel between my browser and the server that owns the TLS
certificate issued by Let's Encrypt.
Blockchain is a form of trust anchor, similar to web of trust or PKI
systems. Meaning the value of blockchain comes from the fact that the
data is (supposedly) unchangable (well there are rollbacks as I
pointed out in the past). So the selling point of blockchain, in
theory, is that the data is independently verifiable and no third
party can change it. You trust the data on the blockchain because you
trust the consensus mechanism.
The thing is, this only works as long as you are on chain, as soon as
you get the data off chain, anyone in between can modify it. You tell
me that the server in switzerland thats behind that URI does nothing
other than reading the data from the Blockchain and sending it to me
right? But how do I know that the data wasn't tampered with? Well the
simple answer is, I can't, I need to trust the owner of that server.
And this is why the trust model of Blockchain fundamentally breaks
down. Because you cannot transfer the trust relationships established
through the consensus mechanism outside of the environment of the
chain. As soon as the data leaves the chain, the trust is broken and
anyone in between can change or alter the data.
This is the one problem with blockchain, which is why the only
successful application is on chain finance, because here all
transactions are within the chain and therefore trust is not broken.
The other problem is in the other direction. You "host" that website
on chain. What prevents me from cloning your website code and pushing
it on the same chain or a different chain myself? I mean all the data
on the chain is public so it's easy to just copy data. How does a
third party know which is the real site and which is the fake one?
Both are on the chain, both are "authenticated" through the consensus
mechanism.
The answer is, you can't. You need some off-band way of communicating
which is the real one. This is solved in the internet by PKI
structures. How do I know if I'm on a genuine website of the European
union? Because it has the domain europe.eu, which the governance
framework of the EU in cooperation with IANA ensures that only the EU
institutions will have access to that domain.
For anything on chain to also be trusted you similarly need a
governance framework which is off chain, which allows any user to
verify which addresses are genuine and which are fakes. This is the
fundamental flaw of DID. Yes if you know someones DID you can uniquely
authenticate them on chain. But how do you know that a DID belongs to
the correct person or organization in the real world? You need an off
chain governance framework which establishes that trust.
And this is where these on chain apps completely fail. I can easily
verify if a domain ends in "europe.eu". But I will never be able to
remember 6ec2p-paaaa-aaaal-ai45q-cai if you gave me literally any
other ID string I would not know of the top of my head if it was the
same or different one.
This is why web3 has failed. You can establish trust on chain, but as
soon as you have to interface with the real world those trust
relationships break down.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-13 21:54
Theorizing, we fall into a certain, quite significant trap -
idealizing concepts.
When writing about decentralization, I suggest not assuming its ideal
state in our considerations, but striving to maximize this phenomenon.
There is no ideal decentralization, because various events (even on a
global scale) can cause the loss of value of any infrastructure. The
more difficult it is to violate the operation of infrastructure
elements, the more we can talk about decentralization. However, there
are no ideal solutions.
As programmers, looking at each new technology, we are more willing to
build our trust in it by having access to the code. For a long time,
as part of building trust, various blockchain projects have been
publishing their code for public review. If you have carefully read
the materials (which I have linked) on the subject of boundary nodes,
you have reached the published code of this node's modules. The most
important thing is that the change/update of software in the network
occurs as a result of a vote by the ICP community (within the DAO and
based on the blockchain), which has insight into the changes, and the
result of the vote starts the updating process. All of this is done
transparently.
Do you really think that the dApp frontend code is that important from
the perspective of property rights? The frontend is nothing more than
a UI/UX effect. The essence of protection is the backend and the data
processed by it. As I wrote earlier, the backend has the ability (or
rather the functions contained in it) to check who is calling it.
Copying the frontend is not worth it for another reason, because each
dApp gets a certificate signed with the user's key (in a very
simplified way). What does this mean? If someone authenticates
(Internet Identity) in your dApp, they will get their PrincipalID,
which goes along with the data that is entered by this dApp. Copying
the frontend makes no sense, and access to the data and backend is
impossible.
I like that ICP has various ideas for protecting property rights, but
not only that. Recently, ICP successfully attempted to launch AI as a
smart contract. One of the ideas is to specialize an AI model used to
conduct security audits of software introduced to the network. In the
same way, you can verify property rights.
We already have the ability to verify humanity in ICP. Thanks to this,
for example, as part of a decentralized messenger, we have the ability
to protect dApp users from bots. I really like the
identification/authentication protocol implemented in ICP. There are
also some cool ideas related to KYC requirements. But that's a topic
for another conversation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VisualLab · 2024-10-14 08:44
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 11:54:28 pmWe already have the
ability to verify humanity in ICP.
In what way?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 11:03
Quote from: Blacha on October 13, 2024, 11:54:28 pmWhen writing about
decentralization, I suggest not assuming its ideal state in our
considerations, but striving to maximize this phenomenon. There is no
ideal decentralization, because various events (even on a global
scale) can cause the loss of value of any infrastructure. The more
difficult it is to violate the operation of infrastructure elements,
the more we can talk about decentralization. However, there are no
ideal solutions.
I fully agree, which is why I think blockchain based web3 is a bad
idea, because it abandons the decentralized nature of the web for a
central component, the blockchain.
The blockchain is not decentralized, it's one central component.
Transactions in China can increase the gas prices on the ETH chain
here in Europe. If you have some app on the chain, and you need to
interact with that app in any writing capacity, you need to spend gas
(only reading is free). So your margins as a buisness are highly
reliant on the global state of the chain.
Let's take an example, I want to place an order for some online
retailer on the chain. The enormous privacy implications of making my
purchase of a Thrustmaster Warthog public to everyone to see on the
chain aside, on average this will cost like 25€ in gas prices. If
there is now a big event in China, e.g. some big retailer making some
marketing event where you get benefits for paying in crypto, suddenly
these gas prices can spike massively, in the past we had ETH gas
prices in the tens of thousands during exactly such events. So while
you could argue that 25€ is not that much for a 400€ purchase (it's
still orders of magnitude higher than amazon which is free), 10000€
transaction fees on a 400€ purchase is.
Also note that this is not a one time fee, but one I need to pay for
every (write) interaction. So if I want to cancel that order, it's
another 25€-10000€. Had a typo in my address field? Another
25€-10000€. Decided to want to get it wrapped as a gift? Another
25€-10000€.
And these transaction fees directly impact your sales and therefore
your revenue margins. Because for the customer it does not matter if
they pay extra for the good, or have to pay transaction fees. If you
put your buisness on the blockchain you become vulnerable to such
instabilities... Which is why no one does it.
So if you are using blockchain because of decentrality, instead of
hosting it on a server you personally control, you are doing the exact
opposite of that. You are now fully relying on a centralized
infrastructure for the hosting of your app compared to self hosting
which is decentralized.
QuoteAs programmers, looking at each new technology, we are more
willing to build our trust in it by having access to the code. For a
long time, as part of building trust, various blockchain projects have
been publishing their code for public review. If you have carefully
read the materials (which I have linked) on the subject of boundary
nodes, you have reached the published code of this node's modules.
For my job I've spend weeks analyzing different use-cases for
blockchain, and the reality is, there are pretty much none.
If you think there is a concrete buisness case for using an on-chain
app, feel free to share. I haven't seen one. If it's decentralized
hosting, you could use IPFS instead (infact a lot of blockchain
applications rely on IPFS because storage on chain is way to expensive
to be useful). If it's about trust management, you always need a PKI
on top, so just use a PKI to begin with.
Like there is not a single use-case thats enhanced by blockchain. Even
finance is only useful as long as you discount any form of regulation.
As soon as you require a regulation authority, all the decentralized
trust model is gone. So the only use case for blockchain is getting
scammed....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 12:37
Sorry, but why do you keep forcing me to analyze the problem based on
the outdated ETH when ICP is at least 15.5 million times more
efficient than Ethereum?
The ETH blockchain is running less than 109B instructions per day (as
of September 2024). At the same time, the ICP blockchain has executed
over 110 billion replicated WASM instructions per second. With the
simplifying assumption that all instructions are comparable, this
means that ICP runs the daily number of ETH instructions in less than
1 second. So why should I participate in your ETH analysis?
Since you mention ETH, I suggest calculating the real costs by
assuming some common denominator. A good reference is the cost of
validating the EdDSA signature (native to ETH). The advantage of the
ICP protocol is the fact that it has the ability to verify EdDSA on
its network. Putting a dollar cost on this comparison, with a
conservative assumption that 1 Gas costs 40GWEI and 1 ETH being ~$1800
(significantly underestimated) means the cost of an EdDSA verification
on Ethereum currently costs $36. Considering the cycle cost (4211120
cycles/1 ICP) with an XDR rate of $1.3476 yields a cost of
$0.00000567490 to run an EdDSA verification on the ICP. Overall, this
suggests that the ICP is 6343718 times less costly for a standard
computation.
Is there any access to the results of your professional blockchain
research? Some kind of report?
Or maybe you deal professionally with matters that are supposed to
increase institutional control and limit the rights to freedom under
the guise of taking care of "not being cheated"? If so, you probably
went into your research with a ready-made thesis that skewed the
credibility of the research, and if not, just as you researched ETH,
research more modern blockchain solutions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 13:25
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 02:37:17 pmSorry, but why do
you keep forcing me to analyze the problem based on the outdated ETH
when ICP is at least 15.5 million times more efficient than Ethereum?
The reason I focused on ETH is because people are actually using it.
You can tell me as much about how great ICP is, but unless it's
actually used it's just academic theorizing. ETH is a great example
because it's a great case study. Many businesses have tried to use ETH
smart contracts for their business, so we have a lot of data. With the
DAO case and the resulting rollback we even know what it looks like
when theres a systematic failure on the system.
We do not know any of that for ICP because it's some niche development
thats not really used in production by many businesses.
Also of course ICP is much cheaper than ETH, because ETH transactions
are a valuable resource, because ETH is valuable. Because for ICP
there is orders of magnitude less demand, the price for operations is
low.
But more importantly, you focus on the transaction cost, which yes ICP
changes because of it's different fee model. But the underlying
problem, is still the same ICP still only has a fixed number of
transactions per second globally, meaning demand rises anywhere affect
the whole system. This is a fundamental flaw in the system. If demand
for Tailor Swift tickets is high in the US, it should not effect the
cost of ordering a coffee in Germany. No other system works like this.
Amazon doesn't work like this, Visa and Mastercard don't work like
this, etc. and the reason for this is that it's completely stupid.
The problem is not the absloute value if it's 25€ or 0.00001€. The
problem is that there is price fluctuation of a factor 10k possible.
And thats also not fixed with ICP. The only reason we don't experience
this with ICP is because theres no demand like ther was for ETH.
The whole point is that your claim that it's "decentralized" is just
plainly wrong. If it were decentralized, unrelated actions on the
other side of the globe would not effect the operations here. This is
why cash is decentralized. It doesn't matter how much cash is spent in
Australia, my euro coin is still a euro coin here in Germany.
Blockchain is not decentralized. The value and transaction costs of
each block in the chain depend heavily on the global state of the
system.
With blockchain the chain itself becomes single point of failure.
Also your calculation is ridiculus. In ETH you don't pay per
operation, you pay per transaction, independently how many
instructions this executes. Meaning yes if you only perform a single
Signature Verification you have this price difference, but I've never
written any application that only performs singe Signature
verifications without any other functionality.
But let's do the same computation for the server I rented in a
datacenter: I pay 30€/mo, which is 0.00001157407€ per second. It has
10 cores with 2.2GHz which are 5.2609428e-16€ per CPU cycle. According
to googles summary result performing an eddsa signature verification
takes 87548 to 273364 CPU cycles, taking the upper bound this means a
cost of 1.4381524e-10€ per signature verification.
And this cost is not dependent how many people are doing a transaction
at the same time. It's a fixed price I'm paying for years.
But again thats a stupid example, because my server, like any real
application is not just doing Signature Verifications every day.
Instead they perform complex operations. So let's stick to my example
placing an order, which needs the following:
1. validate the user inputs syntactically, e.g. correct email and
address format,etc.
2. Validate the request integrity by computing the hash over the
request and validating the signature
3. Lookup the article ID in and the availability in stock and check
the price
4. Compute the total price for the order from the price of the
articles from the database
5. Try to retrieve the costs from the users wallet
6. Mark the selected articles in the stock as onhold/in preparation so
they are not marked as available anymore
7. Store the order for later inspection
This is much more than a single EdDSA signature. Feel free to compute
how much resources this costs on either chain. I can tell you already
it's orders of magnitude more than it costs self hosted on a run of
the mill server, without even cosidering sudden price hikes.
Like I said, tell me a use case where on-chain provides any benefit
from doing the exact same the traditional way. I do not know of any.
And you are clinging onto details like the exact price, without
addressing the fundamental issues that I bring up which make it
inherently unusable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-14 14:02
I’m curious about who invented blockchain and it’s sponsors..
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 14:09
Quote from: Warfley on October 14, 2024, 03:25:20 pmThe reason I
focused on ETH is because people are.......
Well, I honestly laughed when I imagined the scalability and speed of
your server's operations compared to blockchain while maintaining the
same level of security, data integrity, and network consensus
mechanism (any automated one).
And one more thing - wantingt to take care of at least a semblance of
decentralization, you have to come to an agreement with a colleague
from China (who is increasing the price of ETH gas) to set up the same
server in his location (it would be good if the system and application
layer were at a comparable, if not the same level). It's worse if the
colleague from China gets mad at you and turns off the electricity
(which has a completely different price than, for example, the one in
Europe). With ICP, I don't worry about the server costs, system and
server software updates, and I have access to all the available
blockchain functionalities without having to waste time installing
them. I simply call them with my backend in WASM.
You're manipulating us a bit.
Let's do a simple experiment - run the dApp I described earlier,
OpenChat (some brave people from this forum have already done such a
test. Greetings to them!). With OpenChat you can be sure that no one
will sell your data, as is the case with some free messengers. Next,
send a text message using this messenger (yes, sending a text message
in blockchain is also a transaction), and then write here to everyone
how much you paid for this transaction. If you have time and desire,
we can make a test voice or video call. And we'll also write here to
everyone how much it cost. Let the theory be supported by practice.
Do you want to learn? Test more, theorize less (especially on false
assumptions or phobias).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-14 14:13
Quote from: Joanna on October 14, 2024, 04:02:02 pmI’m curious about
who invented blockchain and it’s sponsors..
Well look it up on Wikipedia then and stop trolling here.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
carl_caulkett · 2024-10-14 14:23
Quote from: Joanna on October 14, 2024, 04:02:02 pmI’m curious about
who invented blockchain and it’s sponsors..
** its sponsors **
----------------------------------------------------------------------
carl_caulkett · 2024-10-14 14:31
When I first read Don Tapscott's book about Blockchains, a few years
ago, I was genuinely excited about this emerging technology. Since
then, with the emergence of Bitcoin and all of the other related
phenomena, and the profusion of self-appointed experts, who talk a
lot, but ultimately say little, I am forced to conclude that
"Bollockchains" have become a victim of their own hype
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 14:32
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 04:09:59 pmWell, I honestly
laughed when I imagined the scalability and speed of your server's
operations compared to blockchain while maintaining the same level of
security, data integrity, and network consensus mechanism (any
automated one). Servers scale great, there is this thing called the
internet, it's hostet completely on servers, you should try it some
time. Whats the biggest plattform hosted solely on blockchain? The
internet hosts Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc.
If blockchain was so much more efficient, than why do these multi
billion dollar companies for whom an efficiency gain of a fraction of
a percent would mean billions more in revenue, not chose that option?
Because it's not. Blockchain computers like ICP are so incredibly
inefficient in computational resources per price, and this can never
change, due to the fact that with consensus all operations need to be
performed multiple times for verification purposes.
Blockchain computations can never be cheaper than doing the exact same
operations off chain
And same level of security... Yeah... nothing screams "security" like
having all your code be publicly available and patches taking time and
costing money... I already mentioned the DAO, where a vulnerability
just evaporated like half of all the funds of the global ETH economy.
Or how many people have lost their precious NFTs because people just
sent them malware tokens. Or all the scams on crypto because there is
no governance infrastructure. etc.
Crypto is a security nightmare. Case in point:
https://www.immunebytes.com/blog/list-of-largest-crypto-hacks-in-2024/
This list is way to long for the fact that there aren't that many
people using crypto
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 04:09:59 pmrun the dApp I
described earlier, OpenChat (some brave people from this forum have
already done such a test. Greetings to them!). Send a text message
using this messenger (yes, sending a text message in blockchain is
also a transaction), and then write here to everyone how much you paid
for this transaction.
Lol, thats like saying I don't pay for shipping because Amazon has
free shipping... Just because Amazon pays for the costs, it doesn't
mean that there are no costs. I still pay indirectly for those costs
through the price margin amazon takes from the sellers.
Similarly, sure I do not pay for using OpenChat (directly), but as
they handily mention on their website:
QuoteImmediately after the decentralization sale the SNS will have an
ICP ledger account with the ICP raised in the sale and a CHAT ledger
account with 52M tokens.
[...]
OpenChat has a "cycles dispenser" canister which keeps all the other
OpenChat canisters topped up with cycles. It has a treasury of cycles
and ICP. When it is runnning low on cycles it will automatically burn
some ICP for more cycles using the NNS cycles minting canister. There
will be infrequent proposals to transfer a portion of ICP from the SNS
treasury to the "cycles dispenser".
So sure you don't pay directly per message, similarly as you don't pay
directly for shipping with amazon. But by buying CHAT tokens you pay
for the chat messages.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 14:37
Quote from: carl_caulkett on October 14, 2024, 04:31:28 pmWhen I first
read Don Tapscott's book about Blockchains, a few years ago, I was
genuinely excited about this emerging technology. Since then, with the
emergence of Bitcoin and all of the other related phenomena, and the
profusion of self-appointed experts, who talk a lot, but ultimately
say little, I am forced to conclude that "Bollockchains" have become a
victim of their own hype
Blockchain is a solution without a problem, and the past few
hypecycles were just people trying to find problems Blockchain can
solve. And as I said multiple times, if anyone can show me such a use
case that cannot be solved better with classical trust anchors, I'd be
very happy to see that, so far there wasn't a single one
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 14:39
Quote from: Warfley on October 14, 2024, 04:32:47 pmSNS
Do you know what SNS means and what function it performs?
P.S. I am glad that you started reading what I am sending here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 14:51
Quote from: Warfley on October 14, 2024, 04:37:10 pmI'd be very happy
to see that, so far there wasn't a single one
Problem:
"Under the Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust
Services (eIDAS) Regulation, EU Member States may, on a voluntary
basis, notify and recognise, national electronic identification
schemes in their Member States. The recognition of notified electronic
identification became mandatory in 2018. Yet, there is no requirement
for Member States to develop a national electronic identification and
to make it interoperable with those in other Member States. This has
led to discrepancies between countries."
Suggested solution:
https://identity.ic0.app/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 14:58
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 04:51:21 pmProblem:
"Under the Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust
Services (eIDAS) Regulation [...]"
If you are following the eIDAS regulation you might know that the use
of Blockchain Technology was rejected as basis for the EU Digital
Identity Ecosystem, because it does not provide any benefit compared
to classical and hierachical structures.
So try again :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 15:04
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 04:39:17 pmDo you know what
SNS means and what function it performs?
P.S. I am glad that you started reading what I am sending here.
Yes and I know it doesn't matter for the point at hand. These
operations are paid for from a fund which get's it's funding from the
sales of tokens. Meaning by paing for the tokens you pay for the
operations. You asked where people pay for OpenChat, and I answered.
Now you are just shifting the points because you know you can't argue
costs, because any dapp will be orders of magnitude more expensive
than a classical server infrastructure
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 15:25
Quote from: Warfley on October 14, 2024, 04:58:16 pmSo try again
They rejected it in because they were researching ETH instead of ICP.
Do you think it was written for the good of citizens or to have more
control over them by having access to their data?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 15:35
Quote from: Warfley on October 14, 2024, 05:04:50 pmYou asked where
people pay for OpenChat, and I answered.
It means you don't know what SNS is...
I agree with you. The costs of a single blockchain node exceed a
regular server. But the blockchain infrastructure does not need to be
expanded as much as it is done in traditional network topologies
(assuming the same level of reliability, data security and any
consensus mechanism implemented).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thaddy · 2024-10-14 15:49
A "server" is an abstract concept. Even before "the cloud". It is how
the client looks at some manifestations as one, because they are
presented as one.
Think about that....
Nothing new since the mid-sixties, probably earlier.
Meaning not a fundamental change of concept, but more advances in
implementation of that concept.
( with the provision that morsecode is not thread safe if send on the
same frequency )
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 15:57
Quote from: Thaddy on October 14, 2024, 05:49:52 pmA "server" is an
abstract concept. Even before the clould. It is how the client looks
at some manifestations as one, because they are presented as one.
You're right.
Except that it doesn't change much, because whether it's a server (in
the abstract sense), a cloud service, or a VM, the same one switch
eliminates it from network existence.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 15:58
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 05:25:18 pmThey rejected it in
because they were researching ETH instead of ICP.No the decision was
technologically agnostic, neither mentioning ETH, ICP or any other
blockchain technology. The decision was made because Blockchain as a
concept is unfit as a trust anchor for a governmental identity system.
Here is a publication by the federal office for information security,
germanies national security agency, about usage of DLT for SSI
systems: https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Crypto/gu
ideline_self-sovereign_identities.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2
Note the following:
QuoteAccording to the current state of research and recommendations,
the distributed ledger
technology on its own is not capable of building up sufficient trust
that would ensure for each
application an authentication on a suitable security level. Additional
measures, such as a public key
infrastructure (PKI), must be put in place if applications need to
reach an advanced security level, for
example when requiring an eIDAS-compliant authentication. In such a
case, incorporating a centralised
PKI may serve as a secure trust anchor for the authentication process.
Since this does not have an
immediate effect on the storage and the management of the credentials,
they can still remain under the
users’ control.If you use a chain as a trust anchor it cannot provide
sufficient trust by it's own so you need to amend it with a PKI. And
if you have a PKI you can just use that without the chain.
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 05:25:18 pmDo you think it was
written for the good of citizens or to have more control over them by
having access to their data?
Definitely benefit of the citizens. Thats why privacy is of upmost
important in the regulation. And privacy was also one of the decision
points against blockchain, because the blockchain cannot function
anonymously, the best you get is pseudonymously using e.g. DIDs (or
wallet addresses) as pseudonyms.
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 05:35:33 pmI agree with you.
The costs of a single blockchain node exceed a regular server. But the
blockchain infrastructure does not need to be expanded as much as it
is done in traditional network topologies (assuming the same level of
reliability, data security and any consensus mechanism implemented).
[Citation Needed]
Feel free to show me any business that switched from classical hosting
to Blockchain and had lower costs. Again if it was so much cheaper,
Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. would switch immediately. Hosting costs are
their highest expenses if they could save on that they'd be making
billions
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 16:36
Quote from: Warfley on October 14, 2024, 05:58:26 pmFeel free to show
me any business that switched from classical hosting to Blockchain and
had lower costs. Again if it was so much cheaper, Meta, Google,
Amazon, etc. would switch immediately. Hosting costs are their highest
expenses if they could save on that they'd be making billions
Here I have to admit you're right. ICP as a classic cloud service is
in its infancy and requires a special approach/skills, but as a dApp
carrier it is a very mature environment. Besides, the essence of Web3
is/will be dApps.
However, whatever we come up with here, for now I will place websites
in the ICP blockchain, because the costs of this are incomparably
lower and the maintenance of these websites does not absorb my
attention. "dfx deploy" and I forget for years. This is from a
practical point of view. In time, it will be possible to manage some
data through these websites by adding a backend and closing the whole
thing as a dApp. It would be ideal if I could do it in my favorite
FPC/Lazarus environment. Maybe someday?...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-14 16:55
Quote from: Warfley on October 14, 2024, 05:58:26 pmHere is a
publication by the federal office for information security, germanies
national security agency, about usage of DLT for SSI systems: https://
www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Crypto/guideline_self-
sovereign_identities.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2
I REALLY like these assumptions. Apart from the fact that they were
created in 2021 (when Internet Identity was launched on ICP), in my
opinion they do not eliminate blockchain as a trusted identity medium.
On the contrary - they take into account the role of the distributed
ledger and suggest its deeper analysis.
You may have access to the publications mentioned in the document:
Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Blockchain sicher
gestalten – Eckpunkte des BSI, Bonn,
2018 (in German) and Federal Office for Information Security (BSI),
Towards Secure Blockchains.
Concepts, Requirements, Assessment, Bonn, 2019 ?
These are old documents (2018, 2019), but I would be happy to read
them. Unless there is something newer, then please.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warfley · 2024-10-14 17:44
Quote from: Blacha on October 14, 2024, 06:55:38 pmI REALLY like these
assumptions. Apart from the fact that they were created in 2021 (when
Internet Identity was launched on ICP), in my opinion they do not
eliminate blockchain as a trusted identity medium. On the contrary -
they take into account the role of the distributed ledger and suggest
its deeper analysis.
I mean obviously they can't say that it's a complete failure. You
can't categorically rule out technologies as a governmental agency.
But this is as harsh of a critizism as they could have given.
I know the colleagues who wrote that document personally, and trust
me, thats their way of saying: Don't use it as a trust anchor for eID
means.
Also you should know the context of this publication, the german
government had just published a digital identity wallet based on
anoncreds and hyperledger indy. This solution failed spectecularly. It
was launched 2 days before the election and was taken down 1 day
before said election due security and privacy issues. And the main
reason behind this was a missing trust infrastructure, in that anyone
could claim to be any service and read out your identity data, because
there was no acceditation by some Certificate Authority, as you have
in a PKI scheme. So I could pretend to be a Bank and the only way for
the user to figure that stuff out would have been to verify the DID,
which is just a random identifier.
This is why this document specifically states that you need an
additional trust infrastructure like a PKI on top of blockchain.
Blockchain can at best be used as a reliable data storage, but it
fails as a trust anchor.
This is how the eIDAS Pilot projects like DC4EU which works together
with EBSI to utilize Blockchain are doing it. They basically have all
their hierachical and centralized trust structures, but use the chain
as a storage for meta information like schemas and so on.
As I already said, you can do it, there is nothing about Blockchain
that means you can't build solutions with it. That said these
solutions do not provide any benefit over conventional solutions.
There have been interesting developments originating from the
Blockchain world. For example because Blockchains are always
pseudonomous, and never anonymous, this is a massive privacy leak. So
AnonCreds was developed which utilizes ZKP schemes based on CL
signatures, to prove ownership over a credential without revealing
your signatures or keys (which are correlatable).
And while AnonCreds has a whole set of problems (performance,
unprovable security assumptions, etc.) from that there spread more
development like BBS+. Which today is mostly used without blockchain,
and instead is used for hierachical PKI based structures again.
So to solve a problem of Blockchain technology, something new was
developed which now is very useful outside of blockchain.
QuoteYou may have access to the publications mentioned in the
document:
Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Blockchain sicher
gestalten – Eckpunkte des BSI, Bonn,
2018 (in German) and Federal Office for Information Security (BSI),
Towards Secure Blockchains.
Concepts, Requirements, Assessment, Bonn, 2019 ?
These are old documents (2018, 2019), but I would be happy to read
them. Unless there is something newer, then please.
The BSI is a german governmental agency, so a lot of publications are
only in german, and if there are english versions they are hard to
find. What you need to do is go to the main page, on the top click on
"english" and then use the search function. Searching for blockchain
yields a few results, from 2018-2021
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-15 01:15
Quote from: carl_caulkett on October 14, 2024, 04:31:28 pmWhen I first
read Don Tapscott's book about Blockchains, a few years ago, I was
genuinely excited about this emerging technology. Since then, with the
emergence of Bitcoin and all of the other related phenomena, and the
profusion of self-appointed experts, who talk a lot, but ultimately
say little, I am forced to conclude that "Bollockchains" have become a
victim of their own hype
It sort of seems like the online equivalent of a used car salesman
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno · 2024-10-15 03:05
Hey Y'all,
It was @bogen85 that pointed me out to this discussion. Probably
because I'm involved in many cryptocoin projects, or maybe just
because it was a strange thread.
After taking the time to read all 8 pages, at the time I post this,
filtering out the Joanna noise, one thing was made clear to me: At the
very mention of the word blockchain, everyone cringes and stops
reading/listening.
This is quite understandable. For the past 15 years or so, the only
thing that anyone has heard about being implemented on top of
blockchains has been cryptocurrencies.
This is kinda compounded when about 99.9% of any explanation about
what a blockchain is starts with: It's a ledger...
And this could not be further from the truth!!!
In reality, a blockchain is just a database, is just a database. Yes,
technically it's a container of data, any data.
What makes people go numb is the fact that they only have heard of
cryptocurrencies being done in it.
And if everyone could actually get past over that, then we could have
a better discussion on the subject.
While I've been in the cryptocurrency environment for quite a while,
both the terms Web3 and dApps are still a bit fuzzy in the middle,
never mind the edges.
That is mainly my own fault for not having had the interest or the
will to actually dig a bit more in to them.
But I do think that what they are trying to do is to use the fact that
a blockchain is a write once, read many database, that can contain a
lot more than just a ledger and attempt to create a decentralised way
of making data or knowledge available!!
And if this is the case, then I'm of the opinion that this is as on
topic as any discussion that the subject is a database. Sure, not an
RDBMS kinda thing, but heck, even NoSQL is not off topic here.
The OP has mentioned ICP quite a number of times. And this is
something completely new to me. But my curiosity is now peaked.
Even with the most basic and muddled understanding of Web3( not dApps
), I was already seeing a bit of what could be done.
Also the OP has mentioned many times that the technology behind the
infra needed to host them is not as simple as the very easy to
implement Client/Server models we're used to.
This also peaks my curiosity, since my only interest in anything
blockchain-y or cryptocoin-y is in how these things work, not the
financial or cryptobro nature of it all.
The financial and cryptobro nature of it all is just the noise I have
to endure when entering the realm.
Now, the fact that I haven't dove into ICP, and I'm just forming a
wishful thinking about it, may not be an accurate perception of what
it is.
To me, right now, the SETI@home or Fold@home models of distributing a
binary so that anyone that participates will enhance the entire
network, kinda comes to mind.
But kinda in reverse, since the nodes would be the ones running or
hosting these things.
From my very basic and muddled understanding, what I've been able to
suss out is that we would not need to have the current client/server
model, but something more akin to P2P, where all nodes can serve as
DNS and web page suppliers.
This for me is really interesting due to the decentralisation nature
of it all. But, alas, I'm not that versed in it all to fathom what is
the cost, or difficulty, of such a new infra.
One thing I must agree: The OP does use a lot of marketing lingo and
does a lot of beating around the bushes, that's for sure.
One of the things I've noticed is that @Warfley does have a lot of
knowledge about the privacy issues of a publicly accessible
blockchain.
He points out a lot of real life cases that would never work when said
publicly accessible blockchain is used to host very private and
confidential data.
He also makes me think that I'm in a bit of an Utopia haze when I
think about the decentralisation of the Web. It's not as simple as
just that, the decentralisation.
Which makes me conclude that we're in a bit of lesser evil kinda
situation right now with our current web infra.
The only way I can see this thing working is if we make the entirety
of the internet services work on top of a blockchain.
This is the only way that would avoid getting off-chain for anything,
cuz... Heck, now the entirety of the internet IS the blockchain.
I'll have to ponder a bit more on this, cuz at a first glance, it's
just having another layer of abstraction, but without that many
advantages or added value, only for the sake of it.
My 2c, for whatever it's worth.
Cheers,
Gus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-15 07:19
Quote from: Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno on October 15, 2024, 05:05:38 amThis
is quite understandable. For the past 15 years or so, the only thing
that anyone has heard about being implemented on top of blockchains
has been cryptocurrencies.
In fairness, IBM at one point made a big thing about embracing the
blockchain... Google turns up quite a lot, including reports that the
business unit turned out to be a disappointment.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-15 13:28
Quote from: Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno on October 15, 2024, 05:05:38 amOne
thing I must agree: The OP does use a lot of marketing lingo and does
a lot of beating around the bushes, that's for sure.
You're right. I realize that this may be the case, but:
Discussing this topic has taught me a certain rule - talking to people
who are both professional experts in the subject and people who have
never dealt with it. I always try to balance the message. Dale may be
insufficient in content for some, and for others a good start to
understanding something unknown and cool;Many years of experience as a
lecturer have taught me not to serve everything to the audience on a
plate. I wanted my statements to inspire interest in the subject, so
it could really look like a marketing message. I think that over time
this topic will break through phobias and stereotypes, so it will be
possible to gently move from general to specific;It was not without
reason that I wrote that I value both the participants of this
discussion and... potential readers! It is for them that the message
should be simple and encouraging.I am not expressing my opinion on the
advantages of Web3 solely on the basis of materials I have heard, read
or watched on the Internet. I program in FPC/Lazarus, I program for
the ICP environment (motoko, JS), I maintain my own business
infrastructure of cloud services, so my conclusions are the result of
my involvement in all practical areas of my activity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-15 14:00
One more observation - when familiarizing yourself with the topic, I
suggest paying attention to the time frame. Two years in this
technology is light years, and the entire boom is driven by the
bitcoin halving cycle (4 years). Also note that there is a lot of
money involved, which causes various media campaigns by various
interest groups (from delight to howling, there are many examples of
hypocrisy). There is one area that successfully uses this technology
not only as a financial product, but also in the technical sense of
the word. And where banks have their interests, there... fill in the
rest yourself.
Technology, technology and once again technology in the service of man
- this is the real reason why it is worth dealing with blockchain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-15 15:18
Quote from: Joanna on October 15, 2024, 05:00:49 pmQuote filtering out
the Joanna noise, If only this forum had a filter to remove the drivel
of hateful misogynists
Why is it impossible to add Gustavo to my ignore list? He is harassing
me.
Shut up Joanna.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-15 18:38
I think that in the context of the topic discussed here, this
information about the rules for writing and compiling code for
WebAssemply taking into account various CDKs (Canister Development
Kits) for ICP purposes may be interesting for some.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno · 2024-10-16 06:35
Hey Mark,
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 15, 2024, 09:19:24 amQuote from:
Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno on October 15, 2024, 05:05:38 amThis is quite
understandable. For the past 15 years or so, the only thing that
anyone has heard about being implemented on top of blockchains has
been cryptocurrencies.
In fairness, IBM at one point made a big thing about embracing the
blockchain... Google turns up quite a lot, including reports that the
business unit turned out to be a disappointment.
MarkMLl
Exactly!! Those are big names, both in the tech universe and in the
layperson's universe.
Then there's all the news cycles about countries in Latin America (
sorry, my Swiss Cheese memory fails me here on which one was it )
going all in with BitCoin.
Not to mention some more news cycles spent on reporting the various
hacks and fraud committed by those in the BitCoin universe.
This all gives the layperson a lot of exposure on the coin side of
blockchains, but not so much on the aspect that a blockchain is
nothing more than a write once, read many database.
Cheers,
Gus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno · 2024-10-16 06:38
Dearest, dearest Joanna,
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 15, 2024, 05:18:21 pmQuote from: Joanna
on October 15, 2024, 05:00:49 pmQuote filtering out the Joanna noise,
If only this forum had a filter to remove the drivel of hateful
misogynists
Why is it impossible to add Gustavo to my ignore list? He is harassing
me.
Shut up Joanna.
MarkMLl
I don't think I could add anything of much significance after Mark's
response to you, so I'll just say: What he said!!
Cheers,
Gus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
egsuh · 2024-10-16 09:05
Once I tried to write a smart contract with Solidity within Ethereum
network. The language structure of Solidity is very similar to that of
Pascal. So, I thought it would be very good if I could write smart
contracts in Pascal which can run on a block chain network (whether it
is Ethereum or whatever). Am I understanding something very wrong?
Anyway very interesting contents.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MarkMLl · 2024-10-16 09:22
Quote from: Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno on October 16, 2024, 08:35:39
amExactly!! Those are big names, both in the tech universe and in the
layperson's universe.
Actually, I meant that Google turned up much about IBM's effort,
including that IBM was having considerable difficulty converting the
hype into any sort of sellable product.
MarkMLl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-16 12:08
As part of the dose of knowledge, we throw another pebble into the
garden. Google article from October 27, 2022 announcing the launch of
infrastructure supporting the development of Web3 (BTW, I wonder why
this announcement coincided with the ICP protocol reaching maturity?).
And by the way - please check out the names behind the DFINITY
foundation (creator of ICP). Many connections with Google, Facebook,
IBM, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blacha · 2024-10-16 12:21
Quote from: egsuh on October 16, 2024, 11:05:31 amOnce I tried to
write a smart contract with Solidity within Ethereum network. The
language structure of Solidity is very similar to that of Pascal. So,
I thought it would be very good if I could write smart contracts in
Pascal which can run on a block chain network (whether it is Ethereum
or whatever). Am I understanding something very wrong? Anyway very
interesting contents.
You are right.
If we look at the typical structure of an ICP project, it is generally
not a big challenge for FPC/Lazarus (apart from the backend code,
which requires special handling of data).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-16 14:12
Quote from: Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno on October 16, 2024, 08:38:35
amDearest, dearest Joanna,
Quote from: MarkMLl on October 15, 2024, 05:18:21 pmQuote from: Joanna
on October 15, 2024, 05:00:49 pmQuote filtering out the Joanna noise,
If only this forum had a filter to remove the drivel of hateful
misogynists
Why is it impossible to add Gustavo to my ignore list? He is harassing
me.
Shut up Joanna.
MarkMLl
I don't think I could add anything of much significance after Mark's
response to you, so I'll just say: What he said!!
Cheers,
Gus
Hi sweetie, Thanks for coming to Irc to visit me I heard that you
got stuck in my troll trap ... I’m so sorry
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LV · 2024-10-16 16:50
While reading this long thread I thought. It seems there is AI-
generated content detection software now
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-16 22:51
I’ve really been enjoying warfleys posts, I can’t say the same for
some of the spammers ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Stone · 2024-10-17 00:38
Just want to throw one thing out there if people are trying to
understand uses for block chain other than crypto currencies. I for
one keep envisioning a block chain being used in elections to track
votes. Can you imagine in this day and age there is elections where
it takes days or even weeks to do simple recounts? Block chain
technology can be a solution to election security all over the world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-17 10:58
Quote from: Tony Stone on October 17, 2024, 02:38:55 amJust want to
throw one thing out there if people are trying to understand uses for
block chain other than crypto currencies. I for one keep envisioning
a block chain being used in elections to track votes. Can you imagine
in this day and age there is elections where it takes days or even
weeks to do simple recounts? Block chain technology can be a solution
to election security all over the world.
I’m not sure if blockchain can fix the problem of who is on ballots
though ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno · 2024-10-17 19:52
Hey Joanna,
Quote from: Joanna from IRC on October 16, 2024, 04:12:44 pmHi
sweetie, Thanks for coming to Irc to visit me
The drippings of sarcasm going down the wall in this line is chilling
Quote from: Joanna from IRC on October 16, 2024, 04:12:44 pmI heard
that you got stuck in my troll trap ... I’m so sorry
What you choose to name troll trap could be construed as gatekeeping
and/or obstacles to entry.
I know that young padawans will never opt for IRC. Hence me preferring
Discord to engage with them. But nonetheless, having that road block
in place is not very friendly to any member of the community, be it
Jedi Master or Padawan...
But just my 2c. Nothing worth of noticing by anyone!!
Cheers,
Gus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-17 21:22
Quote from: Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno on October 17, 2024, 09:52:56 pmHey
Joanna,
Quote from: Joanna from IRC on October 16, 2024, 04:12:44 pmHi
sweetie, Thanks for coming to Irc to visit me
The drippings of sarcasm going down the wall in this line is chilling
Quote from: Joanna from IRC on October 16, 2024, 04:12:44 pmI heard
that you got stuck in my troll trap ... I’m so sorry
What you choose to name troll trap could be construed as gatekeeping
and/or obstacles to entry.
I know that young padawans will never opt for IRC. Hence me preferring
Discord to engage with them. But nonetheless, having that road block
in place is not very friendly to any member of the community, be it
Jedi Master or Padawan...
But just my 2c. Nothing worth of noticing by anyone!!
Cheers,
Gus
Not only did you get stuck in the troll trap but you then proceeded to
my easy to enter #pascal help channel and proceeded to troll there
about your hatred of me and my troll trap that you got stuck in
If you were so fun to talk to you wouldn’t need to use exploits to
circumvent the anti harassment forum features. I challenge anyone
reading this to try to add Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno to your buddy list.
You can’t. Same goes for your ignore list. He is so desperate to not
be ignored that he has found a way to prevent anyone from ever
ignoring him here. His whole hatred of me stems from my ignoring him
in irc {where the ignore feature actually works} for being rude.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
440bx · 2024-10-17 22:03
@Joanna,
I think you should "tweak" your new name to "Joanna of Irc"... it
evokes thoughts of Joan of Arc (which is positive)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-17 23:17
Quote from: 440bx on October 18, 2024, 12:03:21 am@Joanna,
I think you should "tweak" your new name to "Joanna of Irc"... it
evokes thoughts of Joan of Arc (which is positive)
I choose ‘from’ because I was in irc for a long time first
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bogen85 · 2024-10-17 23:49
I had assumed the "no discussing IRC" rule was still in effect...
Especially to this degree...
And especially in a thread where the topic has nothing to do with IRC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
440bx · 2024-10-18 00:07
@Bogen85,
Personally, I think it's a tough call.
On one hand I believe that restricting a user from having a "from IRC"
or "from " _might_ be going a bit too far. I wrote _might_
because I am not sure.
Yet, at the same time, I see it as pushing the envelop (that part I am
sure of...
I'm not a moderator... if I were one, I'd tolerate it with some
discomfort.
My 0.02
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bogen85 · 2024-10-18 00:28
Quote from: 440bx on October 18, 2024, 02:07:05 am@Bogen85,
Personally, I think it's a tough call.
On one hand I believe that restricting a user from having a "from IRC"
or "from " _might_ be going a bit too far. I wrote _might_
because I am not sure.
Yet, at the same time, I see it as pushing the envelop (that part I am
sure of...
I'm not a moderator... if I were one, I'd tolerate it with some
discomfort.
My 0.02
I should have been clearer as to what I was referring to.
I was referring to "Joanna from IRC" and others discussing recent
visits from other forum members to IRC and what transpired, and things
related to that, which has nothing to do with this topic.
In regard to the topic of what is happening in IRC and what that has
come to mean in these forum, I think we should treat it like Vegas.
"Joanna from Vegas" would be fine for a forum username, and "Joanna
from IRC" is fine.
But in regard to what IRC has come to mean in this forum, similar to
the "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" saying, we should adopt the
"What happens in IRC stays in IRC" (well, at least stays out of the
Lazarus/FPC Forum).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna · 2024-10-18 01:08
@bogen85 I bet people harassing me with personal attacks is against
the forum rules too.The moderators are probably exhausted with forum
members bickering.
I think any discourse that isn’t toxic is a big improvement
From now on I will try to keep it positive because I’m joanna from irc
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc · 2024-10-18 10:07
Can we try to stick to the topic please ? I tend to remove the last 13
irrelevant posts
Marc