[Cryptography] Standards Trolls: Re: Bitcoin is a disaster.

Jerry Leichter leichter at lrw.com
Thu Jan 7 21:44:58 EST 2021


> "Decentralized means the system has no single point of failure or control (SPoF). Another way to state this is: if any single element is removed from {𝑆}, the system continues to perform its intended behavior, and no single component in {𝑆} has the power to redefine 𝑓𝑆 on its own"
> 
> This is actually, in my view, a definition of a *distributed* system and is not what I think people normally mean by "decentralised"....
I've always liked a definition that either Leslie Lamport or Butler Lampson came up with at DEC SRC:  "A distributed system is one where a component I never heard of, hidden away somewhere, can keep me from getting my work done."

Note that this is the opposite of the definition given here, where a single failure has no effect.
                                                        -- Jerry

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