- From: Steven Rowat <steven_rowat@sunshine.net>
- Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 20:01:42 -0700
- To: public-webpayments-comments@w3.org
To the W3C, I'm writing about the Verifiable Claims Charter (http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter). My particular interest, for many years, has been in Internet publishing, both by organizations and individuals. In this regard, I believe the Verifiable Claims proposal could facilitate a significant advance; and I will continue to monitor its progress and contribute what I can. As a current example of why the Verifiable Claims work is needed, I would like to draw attention to a blockchain protocol startup, LBRY Inc., which intends (it says) to become the 'library of the internet' for digital media, allowing content-creators and publishers to charge directly for their work. In LBRY, media is maintained and distributed via its blockchain network. LBRY has created its own crypto-currency as part of this effort, and is already listed on various trading exchanges. LBRY Inc. seems to be expanding rapidly: it has 150,000 people waiting to enter its beta program, it says. But as pointed out (in a Reddit post that became a #2 trending comment-thread on Reddit's front page) the LBRY system has a fatal flaw in its naming architecture [1]. A more recent Reddit poster has analyzed the problem in some detail and suggested how the naming flaw could be fixed, and maintains that this fix would require an Internet-wide claims verification protocol [2]. The latter post's Abstract states that in order to "...avoid disastrous skewing...a verification system for those registering the names must exist, and no transferable, standardized one does at present." The poster goes on near the end of the post to say: "This is where you, LBRY Inc., probably need to look at ID2020 (which is the work of the United Nations on legal digital identity), and, closer to home, join the in-progress W3C work on Verifiable Claims...." In my opinion this conclusion is relevant not only to LBRY's case, but also to many other current problems in Internet commerce and information exchange. Steven Rowat [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50tyub/were_the_nerds_behind_lbry_a_decentralized/d76wxv0 [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/lbry/comments/585iwu/lbry_naming_system_why_its_bad_and_a_suggestion/
Received on Friday, 21 October 2016 03:02:14 UTC