
Blockchain at CMU and Beyond [video] - eleventhpgh
https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetid=538445
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nsnick
SEI is the organization that hacked the iPhone for the FBI.

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/534km8/carnegie-m...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/534km8/carnegie-
mellon-helped-the-government-access-a-terror-linked-iphone-source-says)

~~~
a-ve
They also attacked tor:
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7yp5a/carnegie-m...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7yp5a/carnegie-
mellon-university-attacked-tor-was-subpoenaed-by-feds)

~~~
gaius
They are also the clowns behind CMM too remember, beloved of bodyshops
everywhere

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skywhopper
"Is blockchain actually better than the current existing solutions?"

Better for _what_?

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koonsolo
Things that require a central authority, such as notaries, certificate
authorities, central banks, government, insurance, etc.

Blockchains could give more trust on one hand (corrupt authorities are all
over the world), and optimization on the other (less people and processes
involved).

A quick overview of applications is here:
[https://www.blockchaintechnologies.com/applications/](https://www.blockchaintechnologies.com/applications/)

The question is indeed if it's disruptive enough to replace the current way of
working.

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Moodles
How can a blockchain be more efficient than centralisation? I once worked at a
company obsessed with blockchain and asked the business person who never
worked on anything technical in his life this same question, and he mumbled
something about “cutting out the middle man” that he probably saw in a TED
talk or read in Forbes. The irony is of course that a blockchain literally
introduces millions of middlemen who all have a copy of the same ledger, and
who all must constantly engage in a protocol to agree on the latest state of
the ledger. There’s nothing efficient about it.

~~~
koonsolo
How much do you pay your notary? How big of a cut do payment processors take?

Email surely isn't central, and it seems to be pretty cheap for consumers. Do
you think we should centralize email to make it better?

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gaius
What is the transaction fee if I buy a pizza with Visa vs with Bitcoin? Or a
round of drinks or a tank of fuel?

~~~
koonsolo
There are 0 fee cryptocurrencies.

How will you pay me $0.001? Or $1 million in a few seconds? With the next gen
of cryptocurrencies, available today. Zero fees, instant, worldwide.

~~~
yifanl
But you would first need to develop a system where it would be common to send
millions of dollars to untrusted parties at high frequency before you would
ever use these zero-fee cryptos.

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pmontra
I wonder which combination of skills and editorial process they have at CMU to
make easier for them to publish the transcript in PDF instead of HTML inside
the page. It's probably easier for them but worse for most of the readers.

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man-and-laptop
Bitcoin itself is moving away from pure Blockchain. There'sd a "second layer"
network in development called Lightning, and most transactions are going be
performed on that. The Blockchain itself will be reduced to a "settlement
layer". (This is not without some controversy).

Of course, the underlying Blockchain will still be there. And it will always
be possible to build other "second layer" solutions to compete with Lightning.

Similar things are in the works for Zerocash and Ethereum.

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clarkmoody
You make it sound like Bitcoin is changing. This is not the case. The
blockchain has always been an eventual consistency settlement system. Layering
protocols on top makes sense and the lower layer does not need knowledge of
the upper layer(s).

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azhenley
Check out the Obsidian programming language for blockchain from CMU:
[http://obsidian-lang.com/](http://obsidian-lang.com/)

~~~
nivertech
Obsidian seems like Solidity married with FSMs.

IMO using an FP language with a strong strict type system based on algebraic
data types, pattern matching and exhaustive checking would be a better
approach.

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santoshalper
Blockchain is the second or third best solution to a lot of problems, and the
best solution for running a currency speculation scheme.

