Topic: Smart property - page 2. (Read 5978 times)

Potential for smart property
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1L3o88GKew

grand idea! *remembers the fiddling with printed lists in London*

Shameless self-plug: I'm working on implementation, it is called "colored bitcoin": https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/chromawallet-colored-coins-issue-and-trade-private-currenciesstocksbonds-106373

Exact-a-mundo ;p

Smart property simply proves that you "own" a digital token, nothing more.

So, as such, I think it is less like DRM that protects Apple's iTunes.  Nothing is encrypted, you are simply proving ownership.

The system that connects "proven ownership of digital token" to something useful is left open.  It could be as simple as "if you hold this token, I will pay you bond interest" in the distributed bond case.

That's true, good idea. You could just store the ticket in your phone and tap it to some reader on the turnstile to get in.

Perhaps a thought for a future Bitcoin conference :-)

This is good, I've read your article before I saw it here. Good job. As for people complaining that we don't use it yet... we just need to start working on something haha

Many years ago I used to suggest that if we aren't watchful some day no one would be able to even use a simple tool like a screwdriver unless their DNA was derived from Bill Gates' DNA, as the ratchet in the handle would simply refuse to work.

This seems to be heading us there a lot faster than if we had to wait for DNA identification systems that can fit into screwdrivers...

-MarkM-

this company can use smart property protocol to unlock the scooters and not only for iphone but on the other devices as well
Video http://gigaom.com/cleantech/the-zipcar-of-electric-scooters-launches-to-the-public/

Yes, it's a form of digital rights management and the assumption is the implementations will be strong enough that it's easier to just pay back the loan than break the crypto-locks. Eg, to break most vehicle immobilizer systems requires replacing the engine (except for BMW cars where they screwed up). Immobilizers are often not particularly competent DRM systems - some manufacturers don't even use real cryptography at all - but they're good enough to stop most car thieves.

If you want to take things to an extreme, Bitcoin itself is just a form of DRM - the rights it manages are claims on quantities of value, and it manages those claims digitally to ensure you don't "copy" the value (double spend).

I don't have any personal problems with DRM - the idea that it's inherently evil is dogma and we should rise above it to examine the arguments on their merits. Locks of any form, whether digital or not, arise when the legal system cannot satisfactorily provide enough security because it's too hard to build and process a case against perpetrators of a crime. Without door locks burglaries would be a lot more common and most of them would go unpunished. Likewise, the legal system has shown itself incapable of handling copyright infringement even when the evidence is watertight, so content creators naturally resort to technical measures.

This leads to the question of whether the crypto-locks on smart property would be trustable (by the lender). Computer security systems of all kinds have a patchy track record but especially DRM.

I think it's absolutely possible to build systems that are good enough for this. The success of immobilizers show that even very weak digital security was a huge upgrade over analogue/physical locks and slashed car thefts. Systems built by experts tend to be even stronger.

These things come in generations. I'd expect the first few generations of smart property systems to have flaws that lead to them breaking. Over time defenders learn from experience and get better. We can see this with the development of pay-TV encryption, games console security, video disc security and so on. The difficulty of breaking later generations was orders of magnitude higher than for earlier generations. Eventually it reaches a point where the attackers go away. I've seen it happen multiple times.


Re: patents. You can't patent something that has already been disclosed (at least not in theory).

One reason I've been doing all this research is to try and ensure nobody actually does patent these features or protocols. Arguably Bitcoin has bigger problems to fix right now, but long-term public research is important to avoid trolls tying up the use of ideas that are too important to own.

So if you give me a loan to buy an Iphone are you going to write into the contract that I'm not allowed to jailbreak it?  And isn't that the same as not paying a third party to implement the hair-brained DRM in the first place and just ask nicely to abide by the terms of the contract?

No, it's not the same thing: you can't just copy a car... wait!

A guy named Nick Szabo has been writing about similar ideas since the mid-to-late 1990s.

Without intending to disparage the intellectual effort involved in the creation/maintenance of the idea, I hate it for the same reasons and in the same way I hate DRM and "copy protection". It's the same thing, but applied to physical items, and I believe it will fail in similar ways.

bingo,this is big
Mike do patents, copyrights, trademarks for "Smart property protocol" only for Bitcoin blockchain,this should be under the control of the core team

This would work well for anything that cannot be picked up and hidden. Land, intellectual property(patents, copyrights, trademarks etc) and other such items would be transferable without the need for a central authority.

Don't tell to Hollywood 

wouldn't namecoin be better suited for that purpose?

Also seen in London: unattended public bike rentals, similar to the car situation.  Like your hotel lock example, once internet connectivity becomes cheap and widespread enough to embed anywhere, you could potentially "smartify" all kinds of miniobjects like parking spaces or stadium seats whereby they'd restrict or allow occupancy through blockchain address ownership, instead of using meters or physical tickets.

Also, DRM on music/movies/content/ppv (physical disc, or digital download) could potentially be implemented as a smart property, this seems more likely in the near term than the car scenario.

Yes, a PAM module or OpenSSH extension is possible. Access to remote computers is mentioned on the smart property wiki page as a possible use case. It ties together with the idea of agents quite nicely.

After my London stay, hotel room locks come to mind also

EDIT: I'm trying to come up with more "immediate" (not that Mikes examples are unrealistic, they are just a bit far away for now) examples, something we can do now, rather than after having the automobile industry embrace bitcoin, which might take another year or 1.5 ;->.

Maybe access to gaming platforms is feasable, or access to servers? Could we make a pam module?

holy fucking shit to this, which i am just seeing and necroing.

more attention please?