Topic: Is the blockchain's purpose being redefined by the forked Ethereum Community? - page 2. (Read 3118 times)

Well, the two opposing systems are not "separate" but is each agent in the community: both a gud guy and an attacker at the same time, and that community is part of what I consider "block chain technology".  It rests on the individual antagonism of agents.

Ah, I think that I didn't manage to bring over my idea then, I failed at communicating it visibly.

My point was that there are no "safekeepers" of a block chain, but that those "safe keepers" are themselves part of the projected dynamics of an "immutable block chain emergent phenomenon"  (the intend) ; in other words, that the block chain dynamics (including the "safe keepers") is such, that the safe keepers never manage to really hard fork (on the core principles, not on some technical detail).  I see "block chain" on this level as both a sociological and computer science dynamical technology, such that what emerges is an immutable record with immutable principles, and that part of the sociological technology is such that the "safe keepers" *don't manage to fork over immutability or principles*.

I think that *this* is the intend of "block chain technology" (including the sociological technology of using greed and trustlessness of individual agents against one another).

As such, when the "safe keepers" (who are nothing else but gears and wheels in the technology in my view) DO succeed in forking, then my idea is that this is an instance of block chain technology failing.


My point is that I consider them part of "block chain technology", and that the whole purpose of the technology was that they wouldn't succeed in doing so.


My allegory was misunderstood.  A safe is a system made of hardware (the safe), owners and burglars, and is supposed to be such that whatever the burglars do, they cannot get into it, while the owner can.  Burglars are part of the "safe technology", in the same way as "opponents" are part of any cryptography.
A block chain is made of computer stuff (hardware/software/network) and "community" and is supposed to be immutable in past record and principles whatever the community tries to do.  It is important to understand that "community" is part of block chain technology, in the same way as "opponents" are part of cryptography.  Block chain technology is supposed to work on the basis of human relationships.  With block chain cryptography, one hasn't the usual cryptographic notions of "the gud guys" and "the nasty boys", but everybody is "nasty boy" and "gud guy" at the same time: the community.  Block chain technology is designed such that from that crowd of gud guys/nasty boys emerges an immutable record and immutable principles.

If the burglar succeeds in getting into the safe, the "safe system" failed.  If the community (including the safe keepers) succeeds in altering the past or the principles, then the "block chain system" failed.

A block chain system should be seen as a piece of technology where the community is part of that piece of technology.

What is maybe disturbing is that in block chain technology, the SAME people are "gud guys" and "bad boys".  That's a bit like with a digital signature, where both parties (the signer and the checker) are both gud guy and bad boy: the signer can prove that he signed it (then the gud guy is the signer) and the checker cannot deny it (bad boy).  But the checker can also prove that the signer signed it (non-repudiation).  Here the gud guy is the checker, and the bad boy is the signer (wanting to avoid proof of signature). 
Block chain brings this to a higher community level.  When I am user (part of the community) of a block chain, I'm a "gud guy" when I want to use the block chain to prove ownership of coins and make a payment.  And at the same time, I'm also a bad boy (if I could) because if I could rewind the block chain or alter its principles in my advantage, I would, of course.  The whole point is that sociologically, I will not be allowed to do so, even though all actors in the community would like to alter the chain to their advantage.  But they can't.  THAT is block chain technology: everybody would like to change it, but nobody can.

I would have to disagree that it is a failure of the blockchain tech and disagree with your safe example.

As to your failure argument:
At no time, or in any material I have previously read, was there any acknowledgment that blockchain technology
prevents Hardfork revisions to the chain. The only thing the protects the blockchain from HF revisions is the devs/community
themselves. That is the purpose of the Community as being part of the three parts to a blockchain system (Users/Devs/Miners).
Users are not only there to purchase the tokens, but also uphold the original social contract, which exists only for them.

Those individuals are the gatekeepers and if they wish to uphold or destroy their original social contract, it is done by them and
not by the blockchain itself. To say that the Ethereum issue is a failing of the blockchain technology is a cop out and transferring blame.
If a blockchain "ran" without humans involved theoretically, your argument would be that it would still cause a miraculous revisable HF
on it own accord, as a normal process of the blockchain technology itself. That is not true and impossible.

Saying it is a failure of the blockchain, is like saying people intentionally running red lights is a failure of traffic lights, because the
traffic lights are not stopping the drivers from crossing into and past the intersection. That argument is not based on logic or law.


As to your safe/vault example:
The purpose of a safe would be to prevent a theft by storing the valuables within a metal (possibly anchored) box.
If the burglar was able to crack the safe's code or find a fault in the locking mechanism, then your example would be correct.
The safe was not as "safe" as you thought. But that is not what occurred within the Ethereum situation.
There was no breaking or hacking or malicious mining. The "safe breaking" was "authorized" by the "safe makers".

A proper example should be that a burglar was able to trick or coerce the safe company into opening the safe for him.
In this example, the safe is the blockchain, the burglar is the community, and the safe company are the Devs.
If the community can get the Devs to create the updated client to HF, then the blockchain was "broken into"
because the Devs did the will of the community. Thus, the community failed itself by not protecting their blockchain.



To say that it is a failure of the blockchain does not acknowledge that all systems can be edited/hacked/broken,
if someone wants to and in the event of Ethereum, the community wanted to perform an "Chain Edit HF".
The "Chain Edit HF" is an alien party not common to blockchain updates or improvements. It is intervention.

The blockchain technology has always been a balancing act between the separate opposing systems.
If one of those systems fundamentally breaks down (the community), then the whole system fails (the blockchain).
(For completeness, if the miners or the devs "break down", the whole system fails as well.)

I largely agree with the gist of what you are saying: block chain *technology* fails somehow when it doesn't realize *block chain intend*.  However, maybe we differ on the point of view over "who's guilty".

I also consider the ETH block chain to be "damaged" (although strictly technically speaking, their block chain hasn't altered, only the protocol has altered: they didn't rewind blocks - but I was myself one of the first to say that this comes down to the same thing: altering the interpretation of data (the protocol) or altering the data themselves, is up to a point, equivalent).  

However, I don't consider that "the ethereum community screwed up their block chain".   I consider this a failure of the block chain system itself.  The fact that is was POSSIBLE in practice to do so, is what illustrates a "block chain dynamics gone wrong".  The whole intend of a block chain was that one would not be able to pull this off.  One did.  So the block chain technology used by ethereum didn't succeed in obtaining an emergent property of immutability, and the community was capable to alter history to a point, which it was supposed not to be able to do unless strong collusion (which is exactly what happened).

In other words, I don't see the ethereum ETH fork as "a stupid decision by a bunch of irresponsible idiots not realizing what they broke" but rather an illustration of a failure of block chain technology.

In other words, it is similar to a safe that has been broken open.  I could say that it was a totally irresponsible act by the burglar to break open my safe, but I could also consider this as a failure of "safe builder technology".  The equivalent question of the poll is then: "Did the burglar succeed in re-defining the function of a safe ?"
Wheras the function of a safe is never to open, except to the rightful owner of the safe.  No, the burglar redefined that function into "sometimes also open to a burglar who is smart enough".

IMO, the true reason the blockchain was "invented" was for immutability. Take away the intent, and the technology becomes
a series of worthless complex steps that can be performed more efficiently and cost effective with systems that have been in
use since the 80's and 90's. There is no logical purpose for a technological blockchain outside of it's original intent: immutability.


To address you recent comment:
You are saying that Ethereum no longer has the "intent" of a blockchain, though it still uses that technological programming by default.
So it is essentially a false blockchain, so to speak. It is using the blockchain system for a purpose (or "intent") that no longer exists.

So you are disagreeing with me that their blockchain did not transform or devolve into a lower form of ledger system and should now
be called something else, but do think it "fell by community vote" into the form of a "false messiah blockchain" or "empty-blockchain",
since the intent is now abandoned. In a way, it could be called a "zombie-blockchain" since it seems to be running without purpose.

Do you agree with this interpretation?

I think we are talking about two different meanings of the concept of "block chain".  One is an intend, the other is a technology.  I was talking about the technology, you are talking about the intend.  Both are linked of course, but the technology is what it is, and the intend is the hope that the technology will achieve, but may fail to do so (and this was my point: it can fail to do so, the technology is not always fulfilling the intend).

The block chain *technology* is essentially a linked list of hashes with some "difficulty" like PoW (in fact, I think honestly that ONLY PoW has a true block chain meaning).   The *intend* of a block chain, most of the time, is to build an immutable ledger and protocol.  However, this intend is to be realized as an emerging property of antagonism of the actors: no single actor has the cryptographic means to do it on his own, and there is not enough incentive for collusion between sufficient actors.  If these conditions are met, the block chain technology gives rise to the block chain intend.

But of course, when there is sufficient collusion and the conditions for emergence of the intend are not satisfied (or the theory doesn't work), then the block chain technology will not necessarily give rise to the block chain intend, which is immutability and stability of protocol.  So the block chain technology can then "do whatever one wants", even change the genesis block every Saturday.  Technologically, this is not impossible, on the contrary.  That was my point.

Immutability in a secure blockchain is always guaranteed, unless a hardfork to violate that function is performed.
If the "community" decides to undo the original intention of a blockchain, and revise work, they lose blockchain status.
The "community" effectively "voted" to devolve the blockchain, back into a trusted distributed ledger system.
Which is fine and that "community's choice", but can they still be categorized to be a true blockchain?

According to your theory, if the city police transform into mall security guards, they are still legal police officers
since the citizens can still call them so. The question is, are they still performing city police work, or are they now
just walking the food court and making sure the kids aren't spitting off the escalators? If there is a problem, I'm pretty
sure they call the police and only the police have legal authority granted by the courts to perform certain police actions.

The truth is, they transformed into mall security guards and anyone still calling them police are ignorant.
Likewise, the Ethereum blockchain transformed (by vote) into a distributed ledger and anyone still calling it a blockchain are ignorant.

Your answer is arguing that a blockchain, is a blockchain, because a person can incorrectly define it as such.

I think the answer to the poll is a factual "yes".  Of course a "community" (that is, at least one miner) can mess with a block chain as much as he wants.  Whether he "should" is a silly question, because by definition, in a trust less environment, there is no "should".

That said, the original cryptographic IDEA of a block chain was that it would remain immutable.  But not because this is a moral law, but rather because it was thought that the non-collusion of interests and the individual greed of participants would have AS AN EMERGING PROPERTY that the block chain would remain immutable.

The ETH/ETC debacle has factually proved that this emergent property doesn't always hold.  In other words, that the supposed cryptographic function of a block chain, namely immutability, is not always guaranteed.

Your question is somewhat like: "can secret keys be stolen ?"
Of course they can.  But if so, then the cryptographic security of what they intended to protect, this cryptographic function, is broken.

"should secret keys be stolen" ?  Of course not.  But that was not the idea of secret keys.  The idea was that one wouldn't steal them even though opponents would try so.

Update: August 15, 2016

I have been made aware that there is currently a war to redefine what a blockchain is on the
Wikipedia page of "blockchain (database)".


Here is the link to the page as it was before the Ethereum DAO was attacked and drained:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blockchain_(database)&direction=prev&oldid=725898196

Here is the link to the page as how someone has been trying to change it, now post-ETH/DAO hardfork:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blockchain_(database)&direction=prev&oldid=734669468

If you notice, someone is attempting to redefine the first section. They are deleting (among other parts) that
blockchains are "data records secured from tampering and revision".


If a blockchain's true purpose was not to secure txs against tampering and revision, what did Satoshi "create" it for?

The it would be good to declare that the original Ethereum classic backers to delay or even junk the switch to POS depending on the outcome of it on the forked chain. This will leverage ETC's position as the chain for the miners to point their hashing power. It will also make the fork an "experimental" chain. All successful upgrades will be ported to ETC discarding the rest. This is all slowly going the original chain's way.

What? Ethereum HF started with people pushing for a block size increase HF in Bitcoin, causing Ethereum to HF to rewrite their history and turn their blockchain into a mutable blockchain?

In Bitcoin "the most" hashpower does confirm what happens. Different software must convince hashpower to run it.
Of course you mean something like 80% hashpower when you say "the most"?

Ethereum did not fork on a misunderstanding of that. Ethereum forked because Vitalic called for it.
Ethereum has a block time of seconds, and a difficulty adjustment different to Bitcoin.

If "the most" hashpower in Bitcoin forked to "bigger block size" it would be a completely different outcome to any Ethereum hardfork.
(as I have tried to explain to "RealBitcoin" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1556202.60)

You must know all this.

Not at all. If anything, it's proving how much smarter an autonomous entity is than the ETH team

Ethereum Foundation prior to the current HF and now after, have been looking into the possibility
of changing their network from a PoW to a PoS. If the Devs think they have resolved the issues associated
with it and decide to indeed change to PoS, many PoW miners (as of the time of writing, 3645 GH/s) would
be dropped and forced to find revenue somewhere else.

I assume that certain miners are thinking way ahead and see that they might be left behind if a PoS change
takes place. So when that one miner wanted to attack but now supports the coin, I think he finally thought
things through. ETC gives the miners somewhere to go with good volume and good price, if that day comes.

The many includes the miners. When we see a miner going from threatening an attack on ETC to actually mining the coin, I would say that someone changed their mind. The miners will follow how the community votes with their wallets and that is how it should be in a POW coin.

The many you mean that also include the miners? Or is it only the community minus the miners. Because if it includes also the miners then I suspect that we should be seeing ETC hash power overtaking ETH hash power. If the miners do not really care much and just mine the more profitable chain then we should exclude them from the "many".

I doubt it. The Bitcoin XT fork does not violate what many would say is the most critical social covenant of blockchains. The issue with Bitcoin XT and the Bitcoin blocksize is fundamentally a technical one. In reality Bitcoin XT does not solve the issue of scalability in Bitcoin it simple kicks the can down the road. My take is that a fork in Bitcoin with the support of the core team, 75% of the hash rate (the minimum required to trigger Bitcoin XT) and the kind of support for bigger blocks that currently exists in the Bitcoin community world not have the same outcome as what happened in Ethereum. Let us not forget this is in effect the kind of support that the Ethereum fork had. My take is that there has not been a big block fork in Bitcoin simply because a solution that addresses all the technical issues in particular the situation when the Bitcoin block reward becomes minimal to zero has not been found.

What has occurred in Ethereum is the few persuading the many to accept a fork that was in reality only for the benefit of the few. One can even call it a 51% attack by persuasion and salesmanship. A significant portion of what we are witnessing now is the many having buyer's remorse after the sales job that was done on them.  

Yes. The fork is because there is an agenda behind it that is beneficial only to a few. This brings me to a question. If the bitcoin XT fork occurred will it have the same outcome as Ethereum's fork. Will there be a split in the community? Because the XT people say it will be fine.

The  Ethereum fork is fundamentally different from the kinds of forks that have occurred in Bitcoin in the past or have been proposed for Bitcoin. It is also fundamentally from the kinds of forks that have occurred in other major alt-coins. What makes this fork so special is that this is not about fixing vulnerabilities or adding improvements. It is about changing the ownership of coins on the blockchain. In this case the objective was to effectively reverse transactions. This is specifically the very action that Bitcoin was originally designed to prevent. I refer the reader to the introduction in Satoshi's original whitepaper. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf When one considers Satoshi's own words we see the fatal trap that the Ethereum Foundation has fallen into. They have become  the mediator of disputes, which Satoshi describes as an unavoidable characteristic of financial institutions.

blockbracelet

"Is it possible that Ethereum HF is actually no longer a crypto-currency (or crypto-contractor)?
If not, what is it?"

I do not know what it is now. It is a forked ledger with a tweaked transaction history known by the public. That for me is like a bank that doctored their books to hide something. But with blockchains they cannot hide it. The funny thing is some people in their community supported it out of desperation that the value of their ETH coins might disappear. How can you listen to such naive people with only profit in their minds.

ETC supporters double up your efforts and show them no one can just fork it and get their way. Not even the founders and leaders.