No one can hack a blockchain, so no one can hack into a P2P network, right?
Correct me if I’m wrong…
I am testing these three decentralized applications:
- Damus: Decentralized mobile version of Mastodon, using Nostr protocol.
- WireMin: Decentralized version of FB + private messenger.
- SimpleX: Private messenger.
From my perspective, if they’re unhackable, then why not switch to these alternatives?
Why keep Twitter or Facebook?
Or maybe only use these decentralized applications when in need of a private environment?
There would be no bans or censorship, and data leaks would be a thing of the past.
I suppose what’s preventing us is that tech giants are trying hard to ensure their audiences don’t hear about these applications, and their fame of course. Plus, people might hesitate to migrate because not many are using them.
do you have the full blockchain on your phone? no?
Do you host the full blockchain on a server at home and access that through your phone? no?
Then you’re consuming someone’s private api. They can send you whatever and you will trust it, because you don’t verify anything they return.
If you connect to the internet through an ISP you can’t trust that either. That’s why we have encryption, you can only block the whole message from appearing completely, you can’t change its contents
using encryption in this case protects you from the isp messing with your communication to the api provider. The api can still lie to you and encrypt the lie.
Here are some corrections:
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Blockchain has nothing to do with P2P. Blockchains are federated ledgers that can’t be changed later, unless the majority of federated servers decides to. P2P means that two devices communicate without a server in the middle. Maybe you meant federated?
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Blockchains can absolutely be hacked. You can gain majority control over the servers, in which case you can rewrite the blockchain as you want. Alternatively you can gain access to accounts/wallets by hacking the software that users store them in or by social-engineering people to give you their keys.
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If proper end-to-end encryption is used, there is little security difference between server-based and P2P communication, but it’s much more inconvenient: You cannot save sent messages on the server for later retrieval, so if you’re trying to reach someone who’s currently offline, your device has to wait until they’re back before sending the message. Also if you use multiple devices, keeping them in sync is very complicated, because they have to be online at the same time.
Edit: formatting
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I don’t see what this has to do with blockchains, SimpleX for example doesn’t even use blockchains.
What’s preventing their widespread use is a combination of most of them being objectively worse than their non-decentralized counterparts (at least from a UX standpoint) and competing with established alternatives, as most people probably wouldn’t switch to a seemingly worse alternative to what they and their friends currently use.
why not switch to these alternatives?
Because nobody uses them.
Spend 5 minutes on this site, and then tell me that “no one can hack a blockchain”.
Blockchain requires everyone to have global Internet connection, which is an assumption that is not always possible.
What if I don’t nessesary need my posts to be replicated houndreds of times all over the world and providing from Raspberry Pi under the bed is enough? What if goverment cut off Internet on it’s borders for a month?
Guess what blockchain nodes are using to connect to each other? IANA’s IP space, ICANN’s DNS system, global SSL system…
If we want ultimate goal of decentralization, why not permissionless mesh networking without ISP dependency? GNUNet is closest to this idea, but in alpha development for 20 years.
Nothing is unhackable, but I do think the new Veilid framework that Cult of the Dead Cow recently announced at Defcon looks very promising. Here are the internals:
deleted by creator
I use Tox P2P.
I use Session Messenger, on the Oxen network. Love it on principle even tho the implementation is a bit lacking in places.
And there’s Tor… Which is what it is.
