
Elk is the easiest way to start building decentralized hardware projects - karanbhangui
https://elk.cc
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hlieberman
You're kidding, right? This is some kind of belated, unfunny April Fools joke,
right?

This is a specialty IoT device for "blockchain", something whose only hardware
requirements is some kind of on-board crypto device... and it doesn't even
have one. "Elk doesn't have any form of hardware security and shouldn't at any
point in time be used to hold significant amounts of (real) crypto assets."

Kickstarter should remove the project for being a scam.

~~~
woah
It’s a “scam” now to sell hardware bundled with special purpose software? This
post is almost a parody of the shrill anti blockchain rants on HN.

And your damning criticism of this device is that it doesn’t contain a
hardware security module and shouldn’t be used to secure millions of dollars?

You’re tearing someone down for trying to support their open source software
by selling hardware with it pre-flashed.

~~~
geezerjay
> And your damning criticism of this device is that it doesn’t contain a
> hardware security module and shouldn’t be used to secure millions of
> dollars?

From a bird's eye view, objectively the project appears to be marketing a
generic low-powered SoC which at best runs some blockchain software.

And the "millions of dollars" was your claim, so if you want to criticise
someone for making it then the only one you have to criticise is yourself.

> You’re tearing someone down for trying to support their open source software
> by selling hardware with it pre-flashed.

It's actually the other way around. Someone is trying to sell uninteresting
hardware at a premium by making unbelievablr hyperbolical claims about its
capabilities, which sounds quite honestly like a blatant scam.

~~~
imake
Hi this is imake from the Elk team. I'm happy to discuss any claims you feel
are unbelievable.

To reiterate what I mentioned in an earlier comment, our true value is in the
full experience of developing blockchain applications for embedded devices,
which we strongly believe is 10x better than solutions that exist today.

We didn't share details on hardware specs, and part of the reason we haven't
done so yet is because we don't want to frame the conversation into specs - we
won't necessarily beat other boards in the market when it comes to specs, and
it's not our intention to do so.

Our intention is to make a plug-and-play Arduino-like device for embedded
blockchain development. We want to an experience where you won't have to fuss
over setting up a node, tuning its parameters to run well on a low embedded
device, handle crashes, etc.

That's part of the reason why we chose to build our own hardware, it's because
nothing existed that would allow us to give the developer experience we have
in mind: breadboard compatible, 3.3v and 5v tolerant, integrated emmc
preloaded with our OS, plug-and-play as a regular micro controller board not a
single board computer, an RGB LED for indicating status, and no irrelevant and
unneeded ports (HDMI, Audio, Ethernet, camera, etc).

We'll be adding more details and shedding more light into our development
experience in upcoming blog posts. Please subscribe at
[https://elk.cc](https://elk.cc) to learn more.

Happy to address any other concerns you might have.

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ncmncm
Crowd-sourced flim-flam-enabled hardware?

Seriously, doesn't mentioning "blockchain" automatically kill any proposal,
yet?

~~~
IAmLiterallyAB
Step aside granddad. The IoT Blockchain is here.

After all, if your internet connected thermostat isn't on the Blockchain, is
it _really_ a thermostat?

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tyingq
I suppose if you're involved in blockchain, selling shovels isn't a bad idea.

~~~
imake
The blockchain space (or, more accurately, the decentralization space), is
still very nascent and there ought to be developments on various parts of the
ecosystem for it to gain widespread adoption. Myself and the team at Elk are
excited about what decentralization can bring, and are interested in exploring
what it could bring to embedded devices.

Granted, most of the applications are futuristic, but now is a good time to
build proper tools to help spark people's imagination and creativity in this
space.

We'll be posting lots of projects you can build with Elk. Sign up for our
newsletter at [https://elk.cc](https://elk.cc) and let us know if you have any
further thoughts or questions.

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liaohuqiu
I thought ELK was ElasticSearch, Logstash, and Kibana.

~~~
analognoise
I thought it was the Eclipse Layout Kernel.

~~~
imglorp
Or the Extension Language Kit of yore, in Scheme.

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exoesquitur
Looks like an interesting software project, bringing powerful and cool
libraries to the arduino ecosystem.

Too bad they chose the "let's make a redundant copy of the pi zero-w (or
another 10k boards out there) without any actual application specific
hardware" model of monetization.

This is really a software project, and the people doing it are looking to sell
hardware to fund the development?

~~~
imake
Hey exoesquitur, thanks for your comments. This is imake from the Elk team.

We did actually think of building Elk as a pure software project, but we opted
not to because we didn't find hardware that we could use that would provide
the 10x better embedded blockchain development experience that we want to
deliver.

We wanted something that's breadboard compatible, 3.3v and 5v tolerant,
integrated emmc preloaded with our OS, plug-and-play as a regular micro
controller board not a single board computer, an RGB LED for indicating
status, and no irrelevant and unneeded ports (HDMI, Audio, Ethernet, camera,
etc).

Additionally, building out our own hardware paves the way for us to add
hardware security in future iterations of the board.

We'll be adding more details and shedding more light into our development
experience in upcoming blog posts. Please subscribe at
[https://elk.cc](https://elk.cc) to learn more.

Happy to address any other concerns you might have.

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Ycros
Upon reading the headline I had assumed this had something to do with the ELK
embedded operating system, it doesn't. Maybe not a good idea to pick the same
name as another product already in the embedded space?

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Animats
It's just another microprocessor development board.

I was hoping for a low cost PC board assembly service.

~~~
imglorp
Looks like. The comm layer is the value prop, really:

> By default and when possible, Elk runs a light node and communicates
> directly with the blockchain and not through a hosted service. Elk pushes
> decentralization to the edge!

~~~
rhizome
Your days of centralized decentralization are over!

~~~
Animats
If this thing sells, it will jam up the Etherium blockchain the way Crypto
Kitties did.

