Ben Byford
AI ethics | freelance web and games designer
Interesting features good and bad
but mostly bad
Opinion, stories and technical issues
Blockchain technology is
inherently inefficienct
at doing most things.
Don't hate me
Not a technology that should be used everywhere
When your holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail
What is the blockchain?
Block chain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography.
Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data
The promise of blockchain / bitcoin
no more:
evil private companies,
government interference,
leeching third parties
Anonymous
Decentralized
Trusted
Immutable
The new promise of blockchain
First currency now any data storage
How energy
efficient is it?
What causes this?
Insentives to miners, investment vehicles,
Size of the network
Network size
X
effort over time taken by protocol
How big is it?
Curse and a blessing
immutable
How hackable?
Private keys
Attack vector:
Attack vector:
Tainting
adding illegal content
transacting with stolen coins
garbage in garbage out
Attack vector:
Crypto-jacking
mining through the browser
Attack vector:
Attack vector:
Majority rules
Priority transactions
Fraudulant transactions
Undermining the network
How traceable is it?
a ledger of transactions
not individuals or coins
How decentralised?
51% problem
Fraud, missleading people, and taking out your laundry
Fraud is easy when you and everything else is a number
Drugs, guns and everything else
Makes malware easier to collect money from
The good from
the bad
Immutable
"Computer says no"
Decentralised
Thank you
Blockchain - Positives & pitfalls
By Ben Byford
Blockchain - Positives & pitfalls
Positives & pitfalls How decentralised is blockchain, how hackable is it, how effecient is it and should we care?
