Re: blockchain and linked data questions

Melvin was one of the brains-trust for BitMark, after WebCredits[5] / RWW
Coin.

I note my admiration for this body or work.

I also note the work of Nathan Rixham [6] [7] on Project BitMark.
Together, alongside a multitude of others, they achieved prototyping and
storyboarding[8] of a multitude of use-cases including, interestingly, the
ability to define sufficient entropy encoding on a t-shirt (or other image
orientated use-cases).

I believe one of the issues that plagued the bitmark project was the way in
which the block-chain related markets work; in that, investments were made
by way of crypto-investments, which in-turn relate to supply/demand,
alongside the value of the coin as is related by the market; and by the
reward structure of those who 'mine' it.   Therein, to stablise the
underlying currency / blockchain method, i think alot of time was spent on
a problem that could only be solved with more money[9] which in-turn may be
spent on the computational resources to 'do stuff' with the coin, as to
maintain the effectiveness of the proposal for investors.

I'm also unsure of the considerations around the 51% issues [10][11] at the
time.  It was my concern at the time that an enormous amount of effort was
being placed on an attempt to solve some of these problems, which in-turn
impacted the amount of 'creative' time available to build applications that
would use the systems and/or make the systems usable by ordinary humans.

I've found a paper [12] about bitmark through a quick google search.  I
remember they'd used an early version of a revox framework [13] on one of
the bitmark sites.  I found that to be a rather awesome way of solving some
of the Webize[14] / RWW [15] app UI issues, which are now being solved by
way of Solid [16].

Mind, I still note the lack of support at the moment for credentials[17].
Whilst these sorts of experiences show the difficulties experienced by
those who make attempts to make or contribute towards the production of
useful things [18]; these experiences really helped reinforce for me, the
pragmatic usefulness of 'credentials' as a meaningful constituent to a
decentralised life-cycle that puts organic agents ahead of inorganic ones;
including by way of 'rule of law', which by all means is in many ways a
consideration that is beyond the means of technical standardisation
efforts.   In more recent times, I've been exploring the issue with a view
to trying to figure out additional means.

After considerable consideration; It seems to me, that building a bridge
with the various Internet Society chapters [19] may be a pragmatic way in
which to achieve meaningful progress.  Part of the Human Experience in
which i've come to consider this view, has been produced via  my experience
with blockchain technologies (with those who are world-experts in that
scientific field) which in-turn led me to believe solutions that put the
responsibility onto human agents specifically (inclusive to their
relationship to other forms of agents, automated or otherwise) are very
valuable; and,
'
Where a group of like-minded people may provide means in which to support
considerations such as how to 'webize' apparatus such as; the 'Magna
Carta',   various human rights conventions, constitutions and other
considerations surrounding the merits of sovereignty, citizenship and 'rule
of law'.

Whilst these sorts of things come down to the means in which citizens
participate (and are provided accessible means in which to do so) through
my involvement in bitmark and various related works; i think technically or
from a computer science perspective - incredible work.

Yet the broader 'web-science' capabilities surrounding the choices and
available ontologies produced as a result of those works; leave some areas
still on the to-do list.

Credentials should be compatible with a webized block-chain, as has been
produced by melvin using HTTP Signatures [20], however as noted - devil is
in the detail.  At the moment, there is a verifiable claims taskforce [21],
and the link providing more specific information about the work of the W3C
taskforce is located here [22].

I think overall, some incredible work has been done.  It's still in
development and i think we all hope it'll come together in a collaborative
and cooperative manner, as to deliver a solutions framework that can
standardised and more broadly supported.

Hope that helps.

Tim.H


​[5] https://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/Web_Credits_OnBoarding​
​[6] https://www.linkedin.com/in/webr3
​[7]
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-federatedsocialweb/2011Apr/0001.html
​
​[8] https://twitter.com/ProjectBitmark/media
​[9] https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitmark/btc​
​[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2thGzzNSs
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjtgp5h-jEY
​[12] https://bitmark.com/bitmark.pdf
​[13] http://pages.revox.io/dashboard/​
​[14] https://www.w3.org/community/webize/​
​[15]\https://www.w3.org/community/rww/​
​[16] https://github.com/solid/solid​
[17] https://www.w3.org/community/credentials/
​[18]
https://www.shopify.com/blog/3026852-what-the-path-to-success-looks-like​
[19] http://www.internetsociety.org/who-we-are/mission
​[20] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-cavage-http-signatures-01​
​[21] http://w3c.github.io/vctf/​
​[22]
https://www.w3.org/Payments/IG/wiki/ProposalsQ42015/VerifiableClaimsTaskForce
​


On 11 January 2016 at 05:22, Brent Shambaugh <brent.shambaugh@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dr. Henry Story,
>
> I remember hearing about Project Bitmark. I saved a few links and
> theorized about its place [1]. I also bookmarked the transaction data model
> for Bitmark [2]. There are some goals to have some support for HTTP and
> REST [3], but it is apparently a hard climb [4] .
>
>  [1]
> http://bshambaugh.org/eispp/ch_1_2_VRM/PDF/EISPP_directional_graph_2fresnel_gss_vrm2transact.pdf
> ,
> http://bshambaugh.org/eispp/ch_1_2_VRM/PDF/EISPP_directional_graph_2fresnel_gss_vrm2transact2.pdf
> ,
> http://bshambaugh.org/eispp/ch_1_2_VRM/PDF/EISPP_directional_graph_2fresnel_gss_vrm2transact3.pdf
>
>
> [2] https://github.com/project-bitmark/marking/wiki/Transaction-Data-Model
>
> [3] https://github.com/project-bitmark/bitmark/wiki/API-Innovation,
>
> [4] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=660544.2185;wap2
>
> -Brent Shambaugh
>
> Website: bshambaugh.org
>
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 5:45 AM, Timothy Holborn <
> timothy.holborn@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 10 Jan 2016 9:49 PM Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 10 January 2016 at 11:15, Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 10 Jan 2016, at 01:22, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I did the data modeling already.  Not the DHT tho.
>>>>
>>>> https://w3id.org/cc
>>>>
>>>> My current line of thinking is around private block chains (with a
>>>> slight twist) ... more soon!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nice.
>>>>
>>>> The ontology looks very much like a first draft though. None of the
>>>> relations have
>>>> domains or ranges specified in RDFS. And there is no link to
>>>> documentation from
>>>> the various blockchain protocols to allow one to verify the design
>>>> decisions. For
>>>> something like this it actually looks like OWL modelling would be quite
>>>> important,
>>>>  to verify that the model was consistent and did not contain
>>>> contradictions, and to
>>>> make sure it was used consistentlty.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I didnt add owl ranges because they were not needed.  The vocab is
>>> complete and can model most block chains.  Feel free to model it yourself
>>> (I encourage you to do so!), you'll end up in the same place.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> It also looks like what is missing is a peer reviewed paper that would
>>>> go with this.
>>>>
>>>> Btw. I wonder if one could not use the ontologies from the web payments
>>>> group
>>>> https://web-payments.org/  such as digital signatures
>>>> https://web-payments.org/vocabs/signature
>>>>
>>>
>>> Possibly, there's a lot of devil in the details.
>>>
>>>
>> should be ok.  depends on implementation method.   working on that.
>>
>>>
>>>> Anyway, something like this if peer reviewed could help bring a lot of
>>>> clarity
>>>> to what the block chain is, as it would make the logical side of the
>>>> block chain
>>>> explicit. So it looks like this is actually an (interesting) research
>>>> topic.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, but im not an academic, so not my focus.  Ive spoken to academics
>>> about this, and not had any complaints.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> except it's less compact.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Would it still be (much) less compact if one used a binary RDF notation?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes
>>>
>>>
>>>> I am not sure what the latest on this is, but I found the following:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.w3.org/Submission/2011/03/
>>>> http://www.rdfhdt.org/what-is-hdt/
>>>>
>>>>  [...]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This of course still leaves open the question which of the new types
>>>> of protocols should be used, given the movement in this space as
>>>> indicated by Toni Arcieri's blog post
>>>>  https://tonyarcieri.com/the-death-of-bitcoin
>>>>
>>>
>>> Bitcoin doesnt need any new protocols.  It works just fine.  It does one
>>> job well.  Translating bitcoin to the web is an interesting idea if you
>>> have a use case.  Making a web version of the P2P network may need
>>> something like webDHT.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> As I understand the word "chain" in blockchain is quite important. Each
>>>> element is
>>>> linked to the previous one and the chain of signatures has to be
>>>> verified. So if someone
>>>> transferrred money from A to B, one would need to find the previous
>>>> state of A's account
>>>> by going from the head of the block chain to the previous state of his
>>>> account. I guess this
>>>> is the reason why folks need to have the whole blockchain available to
>>>> them.
>>>>
>>>
>>> A block chain is just a linked list.  Nothing very special about it.
>>> You dont need the whole block chain, but it can help if you want to verify
>>> balances independently.  Some block chains have missing blocks and continue
>>> to work.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> But then there is work going on that also does not require this level
>>>> of consistency. So
>>>> there is research to be done in mapping out the space between the
>>>> blockchain and simple
>>>> document signatures, and explaining when what should be used.
>>>>
>>>
>>> There's lots of educational material out there.  Once you assimilate it
>>> all, you'll see the bitcoin block chain is a very simple structure.  It's
>>> actually not that interesting.  More interesting are the behavioral aspects
>>> and how it is used.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Btw, does anyone know if there is there a group in Europe that is
>>>> already researching
>>>> this space?
>>>>
>>>> Great brainstorming.
>>>>
>>>> Henry
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>