[Cryptography] Blockchain without proof of work

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Fri, Jan 4, 2019 at 12:18 PM Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamilton at acm.org>
wrote:

>
>
> *ALGORAND is a distributed ledger that avoids proof-of-work by reliance on
> a (Fast-and-Furious) Byzantine Agreement methodology.  See*
>
> *https://www.algorand.com/ <https://www.algorand.com/> and also
> https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/gilad-algorand-eprint.pdf
> <https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/gilad-algorand-eprint.pdf>
> (PDF download).  Silvio Micali has also provided an ACM Learning webcast
> with an interesting slide-deck and commentary.  *
>
>
>
> *I find the number of patents pending rather discouraging. *
>

Thanks, that is what I am looking for. I consider all proof of resource
schemes equally obnoxious. I started in this business writing arcade games
for 8-bit CPUs with Arduino class processing and memory.

The basis for modern cryptography is the assumption that the attacker has
dramatically greater resources than the defender so that they can afford
work factors of 2^64, 2^72 or even higher to break schemes. So proof of
work/ space/ stake/ pudding are all unacceptable to me.

The number of patents is discouraging and mean that I probably face a
choice between patenting anything I invent myself or having someone else do
that. Someone once told me there are over a hundred US patents on
technologies I invented that don't have my name listed as an inventor.
Thats how I became an expert witness in the WebMail case (a Web Mail
service written as a thin wrapper round VMS mail was the test case I used
for for HTTP that led to the Content-Length field being added to make the
POST and PUT methods work).

The reason BitCoin is successful is of course the belief that people are
making money. Most people find it much easier to believe things that they
agree with. And what is there to disagree with about getting rich? It is
why people get into Ponzi schemes or support obviously corrupt politicians
who tell them while male heterosexual people like themselves are morally
superior to all other folk.

The thing with money is that money is whatever people believe to be money
so the Tinkerbell spell works as long as people believe. Which is of course
why 80% of the folk on this list saw the BitCoin announcement but only a
tiny number ever bothered to mine on a serious basis. We are skeptics and
don't believe. Perhaps because we saw GoldAge, e-Gold and the rest.
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