This page records the Discussion Group's meeting notes for September 2016. We meet Tuesdays at 7:30am PT / 10:30am ET / 3:30pm UK / 4:30pm CET and Thursdays at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm UK / 8pm CET for 60 minutes. US times are normative during daylight saving time changes. We use Kantara Line A (US +1-805-309-2350, Skype +99051000000481, international options, web interface, more info, code 4022737) and http://join.me/findthomas for screen sharing. See the DG calendar for our full meeting schedule. Previous meeting minutes are here: July, August, September.
Tuesday, October 4
Agenda:
- Report writing
Attending: Eve, Thomas, Kathleen, Scott S, John W, Matisse, Adrian
N.B.: Many of us will begin to see daylight saving time weirdness in the timing of BSC calls this month and into the next. Please note that US times are normative during daylight saving time changes! Please double-check the DG calendar if your local clock has changed.
We gave out additional technology writeup assignments. No new text was written yet, but we will expect at least some for review by Thursday. The assignment in each case is:
- A definition
- A short discussion of strengths and weakness of the current way of doing things
- A short comparative discussion of strengths and weakness of the new way of doing things (if the technology/technique is "new")
- Pointers to the other technology and technique sections as appropriate (so that we have cross-references among the sections)
The blockchain section will end up being the most complex and lengthy.
Discussion about "public and private blockchains have different dynamics": How different is the dynamic when anyone can can write a block to the chain vs. there has to be a trust framework determining who can write a block to the chain? How does the value to an individual (read: disempowered party) who wants to use the resulting blockchain-based system change? We looked at the example of OpenBazaar.org for trading any goods in a peer-to-peer fashion, vs. a traditional non-blockchain-based system like eBay, vs. a private blockchain-based system where you have to get into the trust framework (the "club")?
Discussion about public, private, different consensus protocols, etc.: There's an interplay of consensus types and governance types. OpenBazaar in particular may require node participants to sign an agreement (according to Thomas's tentative understanding), although node participants may be anonymous – we're not exactly sure.
OpenBazaar might be a good compact intro-level example – or a worked case study. It's just a bit more controlled than total anonymous/anarchy. It was started to illustrate that e-commerce transactions can be legitimate in an efficient P2P environment, removing huge third-party coercion (Amazon, eBay) concerns – but the big parties can mitigate the risk of a bad actor in the way that we suspect P2P system can't. We should research their level of contract/governance imposition to see if it contains a solution to weed out bad actors.
The identities/parties in this picture: Individuals who want to trade; node miners; OpenBazaar itself; who else?
AI: Eve: Ask Thomas to follow up with OpenBazaar or make introductions with some other BSCer.