Am 13. Juni findet ein Konzert mit Paul Kalkbrenner auf dem Friedrichsplatz statt. Neben den Konzertbesuchern werden sich auch viele Menschen außerhalb des Konzertgeländes einfinden. Um eine sichere Durchführung zu ermöglichen, sind daher einige verkehrli
Am 13. Juni findet ein Konzert mit Paul Kalkbrenner auf dem Friedrichsplatz statt. Neben den Konzertbesuchern werden sich auch viele Menschen außerhalb des Konzertgeländes einfinden. Um eine sichere Durchführung zu ermöglichen, sind daher einige verkehrliche Einschränkungen erforderlich.
Die Straße Friedrichsplatz wird am Veranstaltungstag ab 12 Uhr zwischen Steinweg, Königsstraße und Parkplatz Karlsplatz für den Verkehr gesperrt. Die Einfahrt in diesen Bereich ist nicht mehr möglich. Fahrzeuge, die später die Flächen um den Parkplatz Karlsplatz verlassen möchten, müssen dies in Richtung Fünffensterstraße tun.
Steinweg bzw. Frankfurter Straße werden ab 14 Uhr zum Aufbau von Sicherheitseinrichtungen zwischen Du-Ry-Straße und Fünffensterstraße (Trompete) gesperrt. Der Auedamm ist über die Du-Ry-Straße dauerhaft erreichbar. Die Ausfahrt aus der Obersten Gasse und der Straße Friedrichsplatz (AOK) auf den Steinweg ist dann nicht mehr möglich.
... mehr anzeigen
Am 13. Juni findet ein Konzert mit Paul Kalkbrenner auf dem Friedrichsplatz statt. Neben den Konzertbesuchern werden sich auch viele Menschen außerhalb des Konzertgeländes einfinden. Um eine sichere Durchführung zu ermöglichen, sind daher einige verkehrliche Einschränkungen erforderlich.
Die Straße Friedrichsplatz wird am Veranstaltungstag ab 12 Uhr zwischen Steinweg, Königsstraße und Parkplatz Karlsplatz für den Verkehr gesperrt. Die Einfahrt in diesen Bereich ist nicht mehr möglich. Fahrzeuge, die später die Flächen um den Parkplatz Karlsplatz verlassen möchten, müssen dies in Richtung Fünffensterstraße tun.
Steinweg bzw. Frankfurter Straße werden ab 14 Uhr zum Aufbau von Sicherheitseinrichtungen zwischen Du-Ry-Straße und Fünffensterstraße (Trompete) gesperrt. Der Auedamm ist über die Du-Ry-Straße dauerhaft erreichbar. Die Ausfahrt aus der Obersten Gasse und der Straße Friedrichsplatz (AOK) auf den Steinweg ist dann nicht mehr möglich.
Zur Umfahrung des Veranstaltungsgeländes werden sowohl aus Richtung Altmarkt als auch aus Richtung Weinberg Umleitungen ausgeschildert.
Auf dem Parkplatz Karlsplatz werden zusätzliche Parkmöglichkeiten für Behinderte und Taxenplätze geschaffen. Diese Plätze stehen am 13. Juni ab 10 Uhr anderweitig nicht zur Verfügung.
Die Straßenverkehrsbehörde bittet die Verkehrsteilnehmenden, diese Veranstaltung bei der Planung ihrer Fahrten zu berücksichtigen und den Bereich möglichst weiträumig zu umfahren. Wegen der beschränkten Anzahl an öffentlichen Parkplätzen wird die Benutzung öffentlicher Verkehrsmittel dringend empfohlen.
In February 2025, I presented a topic at FOSDEM in Brussels entitled [url=https://spectra.video/w/xwCSYfZh1mJY64zJ9GngbE]The Fediverse is Quiet — Let's Fix That![/url] In it, I outlined several "hard problems" endemic to the fediverse, focusing on one par
In February 2025, I presented a topic at FOSDEM in Brussels entitled The Fediverse is Quiet — Let's Fix That! In it, I outlined several "hard problems" endemic to the fediverse, focusing on one particular complaint that is often voiced by newcomers and oldtimers alike; that the fediverse is quiet because you don't ever see the full conversation due to some design considerations made at the protocol level.
Since then there have been a number of approaches toward solving this problem, and it is worth spending the time to review the two main approaches and their pros and cons.
N.B. I have a conflict of interest in this subject as I am a proponent of one of the approaches (FEP 7888/f228) outlined below. This article should be considered an opinion piece.
Crawling of the reply tree
First discussed 15 April 2024 and merged into Mastodon core on 12 Mar 2025,
... mehr anzeigen
In February 2025, I presented a topic at FOSDEM in Brussels entitled The Fediverse is Quiet — Let's Fix That! In it, I outlined several "hard problems" endemic to the fediverse, focusing on one particular complaint that is often voiced by newcomers and oldtimers alike; that the fediverse is quiet because you don't ever see the full conversation due to some design considerations made at the protocol level.
Since then there have been a number of approaches toward solving this problem, and it is worth spending the time to review the two main approaches and their pros and cons.
N.B. I have a conflict of interest in this subject as I am a proponent of one of the approaches (FEP 7888/f228) outlined below. This article should be considered an opinion piece.
Crawling of the reply tree
First discussed 15 April 2024 and merged into Mastodon core on 12 Mar 2025, jonny@neuromatch.social pioneered this approach to "fetch all replies" by crawling the entirety of the reply tree. When presented with an object, the Mastodon service would make a call to the context endpoint, and if supported(?) would start to crawl the reply tree via the replies collection, generating a list of statuses to ingest.
This approach is advantageous for a number of reasons, most notably that inReplyTo and replies are properties that are ubiquitous among nearly all implementations and their usage tends not to differ markedly from one another.
N.B. I am not certain whether the service would crawl *up* the inReplyTo chain first, before expanding downwards, or whether context is set in intermediate and leaf nodes that point to the root-level object.
One disadvantage is this approach's susceptibility to network fragility. If a single node in the reply tree is temporarily or permanently inaccessible, then every branch of the reply tree emanating from that node is inaccessible as well.
Another disadvantage is the reliance on intermediate nodes for indexing the reply tree. The amount of work (CPU time, network requests, etc.) scales linearly with the size of the reply tree, and more importantly discoverability of new branches of the reply tree necessitate a re-crawl of the entire reply tree. For fast-growing trees, this may not net you a complete tree depending on when you begin crawling.
Lastly, in the ideal case, a full tree crawl would net you a complete tree with all branches and leaves. Great!
Mastodon is the sole implementor of this approach, although it is not proprietary or special to Mastodon by any means.
FEP 7888/f228, or FEP 171b/f228
Summarized by silverpill@mitra.social in FEP f228 (as an extension of FEPs 7888 by trwnh@mastodon.social and 171b by mikedev@fediversity.site), this conversational backfill approach defines the concept of a "context owner" as referenced by compatible nodes in the tree. This context owner returns an OrderedCollection containing all members of the context.
A major advantage of this approach centers around the pseudo-centralization provided by the context owner. This "single source of truth" maintains the index of objects (or activities) and supplies their IDs (or signed full activities) on request. Individual implementations then retrieve the objects (or activities). It is important to note that should the context owner become inaccessible, then backfill is no longer possible to achieve. On the other hand, a dead or unresponsive intermediate node will not affect the ability of the downstream nodes to be processed.
The context owner is only able to respond with a list of objects/activities that it knows about. This does mean that downstream branches that do not propagate upwards back to the root will not be known to the context owner.
Additionally, consumers are also able to query the context owner for an index without needing to crawl the entire reply tree. The ability to de-duplicate objects at this level reduces the overall number of network requests (and CPU time from parsing retrieved objects) required, making this approach relatively more efficient.
Additional synchronization methods (via id hashsums) could be leveraged to reduce the number of network calls further.
A number of implementors follow this approach to backfill, including NodeBB, Discourse, WordPress, Frequency, Mitra, and Streams. Additional implementors like Lemmy and Piefed have expressed interest.
One technical hurdle with this approach is technical buy-in from implementors themselves. Unlike crawling a reply tree, this approach only works when the context owner supports it, and thus should be combined with various other backfill strategies as part of an overall conversational backfill solution.
Conclusion
2025 is shaping up to be an exciting year for resolving some of the harder technical and social problems endemic to the open social web/fediverse. It is this author's opinion that we may be able to make good headway towards resolving the "quiet fedi" problem with these two approaches.
It is important to note that neither approach conflicts with the other. Implementations are free to utilise multiple approaches to backfill a conversation. Both methods presented here have pros and cons, and a combination of both (or more) could be key.
Feel free to use this as a starting point for discussions regarding either approach. Does one speak to you more than the other? Are the cons of either approach significant enough for you to disregard it? What other approaches or changes could you recommend?
There are a number of "hard problems" facing ActivityPub development today. One of which is the oft-repeated refrain that "the fediverse is quiet". This is most often experienced when any given conversation might not be seen as the entire conversation. Julian explains why this is, and what the Forums and Threaded Discussions task for is planning in order to address this one "hard problem".
Talk presented at the Social Web After Hours event held on 2 February 2025 at HackerSpace Brussels (HSBXL)
I don't fully agree with this statement, because these "threading paradigms" suggest two different solutions to the problem of moderation. If the OP is the single source of truth, they can moderate the entire conversation (represented by context collection: Streams). If not, then each reply is independent and authors moderate only the direct replies (represented by replies collections: GoToSocial).
In theory two solutions can be combined, but at the cost of significantly increased complexity.
We're using both here. There's an icon to let you know that you're looking at an actual conversation -- vs. a collection of microblog posts that once had a common ancestor.
The differences in signal/noise ratios between the two styles are quite dramatic. Neither is better or worse than the other. They are different. And they can both co-exist.
Also, conversation containers has the ability to "reply to all" as well as "reply to sender". Microblogs don't have this concept, and instead "reply to all" means "send to all your followers, instead of a reply directed to the actual conversation audience.
Additionally, consumers are also able to query the context owner for an index without needing to crawl the entire reply tree.
While this is certainly true, when conversation containers are working correctly, you never need to backfill a conversation. It is all delivered to you.
Dass das Bürgergeld reformiert werden soll, ist beschlossene Sache. Doch die Umsetzung birgt Konfliktpotenzial zwischen Union und SPD. CDU-Generalsekretär Linnemann fordert eine umfassende Reform und sogar den Stopp von Zahlungen.
Zur Perspektive: von den ca. 2.3 Mrd. Euro, die uns Spahns Maskendeals voraussichtlich noch kosten werden, hätte man gut 40 Jahre Hartz IV Betrug abfedern können (oder knapp eine Woche Steuerhinterziehung)
Microsoft hat zwei Handhelds mit Xbox-Branding vorgestellt: Beide Modelle kommen mit einer neuen Bedienoberfläche, die sparsamer als Standard-Windows sein soll.
Das Spannendste an diesem Handheld finde ich den neuen Chip, der erstmals verbaut wird. Der Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme wurde auch dieses Wochenende vorgestellt.
Der Rest scheint mir ein normales Windows Handheld mit neuer UI zu sein.
AMD stellt seine eigens für Handheld-PCs vorgesehene Ryzen Z2 Series noch breiter auf und erweitert diese nun mit dem neuen Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme sowohl um ein Spitzenmodell mit KI-Engine als auch mit dem Ryzen Z2 A um eine Einsteigerlösung.
New design for video management and publication pages, rework of the display and filter system for sensitive content… this new version is ready for the summer!
PeerTube is a decentralized and federated alternative to YouTube. The goal of PeerTube is not to replace YouTube but to offer a viable alternative using the strength of ActivityPub and P2P protocols.
Being built on ActivityPub means PeerTube is able to be part of a bigger social network, the Fediverse (the Federated Universe). On the other hand, P2P technologies help PeerTube to solve the issue of money, inbound with all streaming platform : With PeerTube, you don't need to have a lot of bandwidth available on your server to host a PeerTube platform because all users (which didn't disable the feature) watching a video on PeerTube will be able to share this sam
New design for video management and publication pages, rework of the display and filter system for sensitive content… this new version is ready for the summer!
PeerTube is a decentralized and federated alternative to YouTube. The goal of PeerTube is not to replace YouTube but to offer a viable alternative using the strength of ActivityPub and P2P protocols.
Being built on ActivityPub means PeerTube is able to be part of a bigger social network, the Fediverse (the Federated Universe). On the other hand, P2P technologies help PeerTube to solve the issue of money, inbound with all streaming platform : With PeerTube, you don't need to have a lot of bandwidth available on your server to host a PeerTube platform because all users (which didn't disable the feature) watching a video on PeerTube will be able to share this same video to other viewers.
If you are curious about PeerTube, we can't recommend you enough to check the official website to learn more about the project. If after that you want to try to use PeerTube as a content creator, you can try to find a platform available there to register or host yourself your own PeerTube platform on your own server.
The development of PeerTube is actually sponsored by Framasoft, a french non-for-profit popular educational organization, a group of friends convinced that an emancipating digital world is possible, convinced that it will arise through actual actions on real world and online with and for you!
If you want to contribute to PeerTube, feel free to:
Folks, we've started a crowdfunding campaign to help to improve our PeerTube mobile app and bring PeerTube to everyone's pocket! You can learn more about the campaign on the dedicated website!
A free software to take back control of your videos! With more than 600,000 hosted videos, viewed more than 70 millions times and 150,000 users, PeerTube is the decentralized free software alternative to videos platforms developed by Framasoft
Spielen hält offenbar jung: Während andere mit Mitte 80 schauen, ob sie sich noch alles merken können, hat Tom Werneck eine 500 Seiten lange Doktorarbeit übe...
From what I saw, it's more or less just a new app that starts when windows boots up. Plus some improvements like "the controller now works in UAC prompts" - which tells me that they didn't really learn anything.
You know a reason why Linux with Steam runs just way better than win? Because they use game scope, therefore not needing to render and run all of the desktop.
So what does Microsoft do? They release a new app on top of the already bloated desktop.
Hoping to attend FediCon this year! It's fantastic that it's in Canada, which makes it much more convenient for the North American crowd than FOSDEM.
I usually do some pretty technical topics, but would something more high level be better?
Earlier this
Hoping to attend FediCon this year! It's fantastic that it's in Canada, which makes it much more convenient for the North American crowd than FOSDEM.
I usually do some pretty technical topics, but would something more high level be better?
Earlier this year I presented a talk on a way to fix the "quiet fedi" problem. Maybe I'll fix federated private group chats this time around :smiling_imp:
Hoping to attend FediCon this year! It's fantastic that it's in Canada, which makes it much more convenient for the North American crowd than FOSDEM.
I usually do some pretty technical topics, but would something more high level be better?
Earlier this year I presented a talk on a way to fix the "quiet fedi" problem. Maybe I'll fix federated private group chats this time around :smiling_imp:
There are a number of "hard problems" facing ActivityPub development today. One of which is the oft-repeated refrain that "the fediverse is quiet". This is most often experienced when any given conversation might not be seen as the entire conversation. Julian explains why this is, and what the Forums and Threaded Discussions task for is planning in order to address this one "hard problem".
Talk presented at the Social Web After Hours event held on 2 February 2025 at HackerSpace Brussels (HSBXL)
letztlich wird es egal sein, da du im Fediverse überall zugreifen kannst. Ich würde mich versuchen, thematisch auszuwählen.
Ich finde zum Beispiel digitalcourage.video sehr cool, weil meine Themen #Datenschutz und #Informationssicherheit für Einsteiger dort vertreten werden.
Wenn Polizisten tödliche Radunfälle protokollieren, notieren sie oft Schlagworte wie: „Pedelec, weiblich, 79 Jahre“, „Pedelec, weiblich, 77 Jahre“, „Pedelec, männlich, 85 Jahre“, „Pedelec, männlich, 81 Jahre“. Es geht immer um Unfallkategorie 1 und Unfalltyp 3: Mutmaßlich haben die Radfahrer den Unfall beim Kreuzen einer Straße verursacht. Ereignet haben sich die vier Unfälle in den vergangenen Jahren im ländlichen Oberschwaben. Die beiden Frauen wollten ihren Ehemännern beim Queren einer Landstraße folgen. Die Neunundsiebzigjährige wurde dabei frontal von einem Auto erfasst und über die Motorhaube geschleudert. Die Siebenundsiebzigjährige wurde von einem Auto gestreift, stürzte und zog sich tödliche Kopfverletzungen zu.
…
2023 kamen 189 Radfahrer auf Landstraßen ums Leben, was einem Anteil von 42 Prozent aller tödlich verunglückten Radfahrer entspricht. Gefährlich sind besonders Kreuzungen, etwa wenn ein Feldweg eine
... mehr anzeigen
Wenn Polizisten tödliche Radunfälle protokollieren, notieren sie oft Schlagworte wie: „Pedelec, weiblich, 79 Jahre“, „Pedelec, weiblich, 77 Jahre“, „Pedelec, männlich, 85 Jahre“, „Pedelec, männlich, 81 Jahre“. Es geht immer um Unfallkategorie 1 und Unfalltyp 3: Mutmaßlich haben die Radfahrer den Unfall beim Kreuzen einer Straße verursacht. Ereignet haben sich die vier Unfälle in den vergangenen Jahren im ländlichen Oberschwaben. Die beiden Frauen wollten ihren Ehemännern beim Queren einer Landstraße folgen. Die Neunundsiebzigjährige wurde dabei frontal von einem Auto erfasst und über die Motorhaube geschleudert. Die Siebenundsiebzigjährige wurde von einem Auto gestreift, stürzte und zog sich tödliche Kopfverletzungen zu.
…
2023 kamen 189 Radfahrer auf Landstraßen ums Leben, was einem Anteil von 42 Prozent aller tödlich verunglückten Radfahrer entspricht. Gefährlich sind besonders Kreuzungen, etwa wenn ein Feldweg eine Landstraße quert. Dort ereignen sich 68 Prozent der schweren Unfälle. Die tödlichen Unfälle dort werden nach Angaben der Polizei meist von den Radfahrern verursacht. Bei zwei Dritteln der tödlichen Unfälle sitzen Senioren auf dem Rad. In den vier zu Beginn vorgestellten Fällen missachteten die Radfahrer die Vorfahrt. Sie schafften es nicht, rechtzeitig vor dem nächsten Auto die Straße zu queren.
…
Matthias Zimmermann nennt die Altersstruktur bei den tödlichen Radunfällen außerhalb von Ortschaften in Baden-Württemberg „bemerkenswert“. Häufig sind Menschen, die älter als fünfundsechzig Jahre sind und ein Pedelec fahren, Hauptverursacher und zugleich Opfer. Von 147 Radfahrern, die zwischen 2017 und 2022 außerhalb der gelben Ortsschilder tödliche Unfälle verursacht haben, sind gut siebzig Prozent älter als 65 Jahre. Die Zahl beziehen sich auf Pedelecs, bei normalen Fahrrädern liegt sie etwas niedriger. Nimmt man nur Räder mit Elektroantrieb, verursachen Menschen über 65 Jahre gut achtzig Prozent aller Einbiegen-Kreuzen-Unfälle. Vierzig Prozent von ihnen sind sogar älter als achtzig Jahre. Es zeigt sich ein Muster: Wenn Senioren mit einem Pedelec eine Landstraße kreuzen wollen, besteht erhöhtes Unfallrisiko.
Radunfälle mit Todesfolge ereignen sich häufig beim Kreuzen von Landstraßen. Immer wieder verunglücken Senioren mit E-Bikes. Was lässt sich dagegen tun?
Dazu passend wünscht sich der Rentner-Verband der CDU sichere Radwege und überhaupt Dinge , für die man in der Union sonst nur ein Hohnlachen übrig hat:
Auf ihre alten Tage werden die #MännerdiedieWeltverbrennen plötzlich sensibel. Haben keine Lust mehr, die Suppe die sie uns eingebrockt haben, auszulöffeln? Das könnte der Verkehrswende einen ordentlichen Schub geben, wenn schon sonstige Tote im Verkehr nicht reichen..
Wurden die Fahrgeschwindigkeiten der beteiligten Dosenlenker untersucht? Unfallursache: Blinde Raserei?! Wie sieht's aus mit deren Bremsverhalten? Wenn Partnerinnen ihren Partnern auf dem Rad folgen, dann sollten die Dosenlenker zumindest schon mal den zuerst querenden Radler wahrgenommen haben. Sind wohl schon zu schwach, um den Gasfuß vom Pedal zu heben! Nur eine Folge von: "Freie Fahrt für freie Bürger" - Verblenndung/Vernebelung - Autowahn! > #Tempolimit!
eVoting ist ja seit Herbst wieder im Trend. In den letzten Jahren wurde viel dazu geschrieben; das immer mal wieder auftauchende Argument «Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen» wurde meines Wissens nach bisher aber noch nie vertieft behandelt.
Deshalb ist es der Star des aktuellen DNIP-Artikels. Während der Kanton Zürich vor rund 15 Jahren keine Veränderung sah, gibt es ein anderes, bewährtes Werkzeug. Schauen wir uns das mal an.
Aber er hat auch—und das ist der Auslöser des heutigen Artikels—regelmässig die höchste Stimmbeteiligung der Schweiz: Seit vielen Jahrzehnten ist die durchschnittliche Stimmbeteiligung jeden Jahres um rund 15–35 Prozentpunkte höher als der schweizerische Durchschnitt und schlägt auch den jeweils Zweitplatzierten klar mit rund 5–25 Punkten Vorsprung.
Was macht diese Linie da oben?
Die ganze Schweiz frönt der Stimmabstinenz. Die ganze Schweiz? Nein, ein kleiner aufmüpfiger, dreigeteilter Kanton kann es nicht lassen und ist im Jahresdurchschnitt immer etliche Prozent vor dem Feld der Mitbewerber in dieser Kategorie.
Was macht Schaffhausen so speziell? Es ist der letzte Kanton mit einer durchgesetzten Stimmpflicht (6 Franken, also ein Latte Macchiato, pro versäumtem Termin, bequem in einer handlichen Jahresrechnung zu bezahlen). Der Kanton Schaffhausen hat jedes Jahr den Pokal für die höchste Gesamtstimmbeteiligung nach Hause tragen können. Die jährlichen Stimmbeteiligungsdurchschnitte des Kantons Schaffhausen und der Gesamtschweiz sind gelb-schwarz bzw. weiss-rot aufgetragen. Der graue Bereich deckt die Spannweite der Jahresdurchschnitte der anderen Kantone ab. (Mehr Informationen zu Datenquelle und Methodik im DNIP-Artikel.)
Nachforschungen
Doch das allein ist ja noch kein Beweis. Könnte auch sein, dass seine grösstenteils rechtsrheinische Lage (und die deutschen Enklave uvam.) vielleicht der Grund diese hohe Stimmbeteiligung ist?
Bis 1971/72 war auch der Aargau in der Spitzengruppe, seither im unteren Mittelfeld. Was war geschehen? Aargau schaffte 1971 die Stimmpflicht ab. Gleichzeitig wurde aber auch das Frauenstimmrecht eingeführt. Was war jetzt der Grund für die Halbierung? Entwicklung der Stimmbeteiligungen in den Kantonen, mit Schaffhausen und Aargau separat vom Rest aufgezeichnet. (Mehr Informationen zu Datenquelle und Methodik im DNIP-Artikel.)
Sind die Frauen schuld?
Zum Glück hat der Kanton Aargau für die Grossratswahlen 1973-2012 eine Geschlechterstatistik (etwas, was sonst schwer zu bekommen ist).Diese zeigen, dass Frauen nur leicht weniger häufig wählen. Dieser Unterschied erklärt nur 5 Prozentpunkte des Einbruchs von 80% Stimmbeteiligung davor zu 40% danach. Die restlichen 35 Prozentpunkte müssen also grösstenteils vom Ende der Stimmpflicht herrühren. Wahlbeteiligung bei Grossratswahlen, erzeugt aus den Statistiken zur Nichtwählerquote der Staatskanzlei Aargau. (Mehr Informationen zu Datenquelle und Methodik im DNIP-Artikel.)
Stimmpflicht?
Die Stimmpflicht im Kanton Schaffhausen ist dabei gar nicht so drastisch:
Busse von 6 Franken (mit bequemer Jahresrechnung mit Einzahlungsschein)
Entschuldigung ist trivial (beliebteste Methode: Einfach bis 3 Tage nach(!) dem Abstimmungstermin den Stimmrechtsausweis zurück an die Gemeinde)
Und natürlich gibt es einen detaillierten Anhang mit Erläuterungen zu den Daten, ihrer Aussagekraft und weiteren Hintergründen.
Weitere Einflüsse
Stärkere Einflüsse als die Stimmbeteiligung dürften die Auswirkungen von
Lobbyorganisationen (Spenden, direkte Einwirkung; verstärkt durch mangelnde Transparenz),
die Komplexität der Themen, z.B. auch fehlende Kenntnis und Erfahrung der Politiker:innen (und Stimmbürger:innen) bei Digitalthemen,
die steigende Bereitschaft von Politiker:innen, Aussagen zu vertreten, die objektiv falsch sind,
Die Adressierung dieser Themen ist meiner Ansicht nach deutlich wichtiger als die Erhöhung der Stimmbeteiligung oder die Vereinfachung des Abstimmungsvorgangs. Diese Punkte hier werden, wenn wir sie nicht rasch und konkret angehen, unsere Demokratie spätestens mittelfristig gefährden.
Aber im Gegensatz zu eVoting gibt es hier keine kommerziellen Interessen, im Gegenteil.
Wahlschablonen für Blinde, Sehbehinderte bzw. Menschen mit motorischen Einschränkungen
Briefwahl und/oder Botschaftswahl für Auslandschweizer:innen; die meisten leben in Ländern mit funktionierender Post (ich war selbst mehrere Jahre im Ausland und finde)
Stimmbeteiligung und -kompetenz
Einfache, klar nachvollziehbare Vorlagen
Sachliche, aber nicht langweilige Informationen
Trennung zwischen Faktenlage und Schlussfolgerung/Argumentation
Verbesserung der Medienkompetenz (Erkennen von Desinformation)
Unterstützung für politische Bildung
Mir ist klar, dass nicht alles einfach umzusetzen ist. Aber diese Punkte haben wir unter Kontrolle und können sie bewusst ändern. Und sie hätten konkrete Vorteile für unsere Gesellschaft und kommen mit deutlich weniger Risiken als das eVoting.
Weiterführende Materialien
Patrick Seemann: eVoting: No risk, have fun?, DNIP, 2023-09-04. Die Risikobeurteilung der Bundeskanzlei definiert viele Risiken einfach als eliminiert, als wirklich etwas am Risiko selbst zu ändern.
Marcel Waldvogel: DEFCON Voting Village 23 Panel, 2024-02-12. Transkription der Vorträge des DEFCON Voting Village 23 Panels, welche die Probleme von eVoting erläutern — und wieso eShopping oder eBanking und eVoting nicht in denselben Topf geworfen werden dürfen.
E-Voting, Digitale Gesellschaft. Dossier mit der Entwicklung in der Schweiz und Kritikpunkten.
Vote électronique, Bundeskanzlei. Dossier mit Überblick über den Stand des eVoting-Versuchs in der Schweiz und den hier fehlenden Pro-Argumenten.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters mit Aussagen, die nicht unwidersprochen bleiben können.
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden kennenzulernen. Und danach – viel wichtiger – was wir tun können, um uns zu schützen.
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen), Bilder (auch die peinlichen) und Kommentare (auch die blöden Sprüche) auf Facebook und Instagram, die Interaktionen mit dem KI-Chatbot «Meta… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen» gewesen sei. Und nun könne «man gratis oder für eine Gebühr von etwa 20 Dollar pro Monat jede Zeitung auf… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
Hatte mich nach wahrscheinlich mehr als einem Jahr mal wieder bei Facebook eingeloggt. Das erste, was mir entgegenkam: Offensichtlicher Spam, der mittels falscher Botschaften auf Klicks abzielte. Aber beim Versuch, einen wahrheitsgemässen Bericht über ein EuGH-Urteil gegen Facebook zu posten, wurde dieser unter dem Vorwand, ich würde Spam verbreiten, gelöscht. Was ist passiert?
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz viele Leute ganz wenig Ahnung haben, wie die Datenflüsse bei KI-Chatbots wie ChatGPT etc. eigentlich ablaufen. Deshalb habe ich für… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
🧑🏫 «eVoting: Rettung der Demokratie oder Todesstoss?»
Die Demokratie ist unter Beschuss, neuerdings auch durch Fake News, Trollfabriken und KI. «Vote éléctronique», so heisst die elektronische Abstimmung im Bundesjargon, ist angetreten, um die Demokratie zu retten. Am Mittwochabend geht Marcel Waldvogel der Frage nach, wie eVoting eigentlich funktioniert und welche Auswirkungen es auf unsere Gesellschaft haben könnte. Und wieso er glaubt, dass es trotz vieler technischer Sicherheitsmassnahmen eben doch unsicher ist.
Vortrag
VHS Stein am Rhein
Datum
Mittwoch, 29. Mai 2024
Beginn
19:30
Ort
Stein am Rhein
Saal
Jakob und Emma Windler-Saal (Bürgerasyl am Rathausplatz)
demo.evoting.ch Öffentliche Demoversion des Post/Scytl-eVoting-Systems.
tg.evoting.ch Produktives eVoting-Portal des Kantons Thurgau.
Vote électronique, Bundeskanzlei. Dossier mit Überblick über den Stand des eVoting-Versuchs in der Schweiz und den hier fehlenden Pro-Argumenten.
E-Voting: Chronik, Kanton Zürich. Chronik von eVoting im Kanton Zürich, einem der frühen Player.
Hintergrund/Kritik
Marcel Waldvogel: Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen ohne eVoting, DNIP, 2024-05-27. Die Grafiken und Hintergründe zur Stimmbeteiligung (und viele weitere Informationen, inkl. ein Fazit).
Patrick Seemann: eVoting: No risk, have fun?, DNIP, 2023-09-04. Die Risikobeurteilung der Bundeskanzlei definiert viele Risiken einfach als eliminiert, als wirklich etwas am Risiko selbst zu ändern.
Marcel Waldvogel: DEFCON Voting Village 23 Panel, 2024-02-12. Transkription der Vorträge des DEFCON Voting Village 23 Panels, welche die Probleme von eVoting erläutern — und wieso eShopping oder eBanking und eVoting nicht in denselben Topf geworfen werden dürfen.
E-Voting, Digitale Gesellschaft. Dossier mit der Entwicklung in der Schweiz und Kritikpunkten.
Marcel Waldvogel: Tracking, nein danke!, DNIP, 2023-12-20. Gefahren und Schutzmassnahmen für den eigenen Internet-Browser.
Marcel Waldvogel: Was uns Ransomware zu Datenschutz und Datensicherheit lehrt, 2022-12-05. Einige Tipps für Individuen und KMUs, die auch gegen Cyberangriffe helfen. Sie taugen nur bedingt für Grossfirmen und exponierte Personen/Organisationen; diese brauchen spezifisches, erfahrenes Personal und auf sie zugeschnittene Lösungen.
Marcel Waldvogel: Marcel pendelt: «KI» und «Vertrauen», DNIP, 2023-12-11. Wieso Vertrauen in Organisationen (und damit KI) anders funktioniert als Vertrauen in Menschen.
Patrick Seemann: Die Sache mit dem Vertrauen, DNIP, demnächst. Computern zu vertrauen ist schwierig bis unmöglich; anhand des klassischen Papers «Reflections on Trusting Trust»).
Moderne Kryptographie
Marcel Waldvogel: Post Quantum and Homomorphic Encryption made easy, 2023-02-23. Eine allgemeinverständliche Erklärung anhand von Kinderrätseln, wie einige dieser quantensicheren Verschlüsselungsalgorithmen funktionieren.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters mit Aussagen, die nicht unwidersprochen bleiben können.
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden kennenzulernen. Und danach – viel wichtiger – was wir tun können, um uns zu schützen.
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen), Bilder (auch die peinlichen) und Kommentare (auch die blöden Sprüche) auf Facebook und Instagram, die Interaktionen mit dem KI-Chatbot «Meta… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen» gewesen sei. Und nun könne «man gratis oder für eine Gebühr von etwa 20 Dollar pro Monat jede Zeitung auf… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
Hatte mich nach wahrscheinlich mehr als einem Jahr mal wieder bei Facebook eingeloggt. Das erste, was mir entgegenkam: Offensichtlicher Spam, der mittels falscher Botschaften auf Klicks abzielte. Aber beim Versuch, einen wahrheitsgemässen Bericht über ein EuGH-Urteil gegen Facebook zu posten, wurde dieser unter dem Vorwand, ich würde Spam verbreiten, gelöscht. Was ist passiert?
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz viele Leute ganz wenig Ahnung haben, wie die Datenflüsse bei KI-Chatbots wie ChatGPT etc. eigentlich ablaufen. Deshalb habe ich für… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
Vor einigen Wochen hat Bruce Schneier einen Vortrag gehalten, bei dem er vor der der Vermischung und Fehlinterpretation des Begriffs «Vertrauen» gewarnt hat,
Einen verwandten Artikel (eigentlich sein Vorgänger) gibt es auf Deutsch 🇩🇪: «Reproduzierbare KI: Ein Selbstversuch». Darüber findet man auch mehr Informationen zu KI.
By trying to reproduce the original prompts, an estimate on #2 was possible. (My guess: Several of the images required multiple or even many attempts.)
Trying to switch languages can help give a hint on part of question #1: Whether switching language simplifies finding the right prompt.
“Haustür mit Krokodil” (“front door with crocodile”) according to MidJourney. The “Krok” neon lighting is the only reference to the prompt I could find.
A side lesson from the experiments in German: Current generative AI have no possibility to report, “Huh?”. They just do their best. And if, as in this image, MidJourney does not understand the German prompt at all (“Haustür mit Krokodil”, i.e., “front door with crocodile”) it just creates anything. (For artistic image generation, this may be acceptable behavior. But not in many other scenarios where we use AI, now or in the future.)
When looking at the images here, you may want to have the original German article side-by-side for direct comparison.
Railway station
«A robot reading a newspaper outside in a Swiss city while waiting for the train. Large-size photography, Jeff Wall style. Very detailed. Very high resolution. Linhof Master Technika Classic. Hasselblad. 80 mm.» After generating the first four images, I found the railway stations to be much more “Swiss” than those created from the German prompt. The houses, the hedges, the walls, the streets: Clearly Swiss; those created from the German prompt, on the other hand, looked much more generic and could be in many other (European) countries instead.
I only noticed the lack of Swissness in comparison to these stunning images. So I wanted to be sure and made two additional sets with identical prompts (DALL•E 2 always creates a set of four independent images for each prompt). If you look closely, you can find some non-Swiss items here, such as the clock in image 6 or the pole in image 7.
To make sure that the originally chosen perspective for the German prompts was not the reason for lack of Swissness, I created another set with the original German prompt: «Ein Roboter liest draussen in einer Schweizer Stadt eine Zeitung, während er auf den Zug wartet. Grossformatige Fotografie im Stil von Jeff Wall. Sehr detailliert. Sehr hohe Auflösung. Linhof Master Technika Classic. Hasselblad. 80 mm.» Several of the newly generated German-prompt images were much more Swiss: I found number 3 to be particularly Swiss with the overhead line gantry. The ticket vending machine(?) in the first image, however, is a weird combination of equipment, some of them reminding of actual Swiss vending machines (such as the top cover).
Conclusion: The original German results showed a lack of Swissness, but it may be partly due to the selection of angles. The new German results seem somewhat more Swiss, but the English prompts feel delightfully home.
Result: English wins.
Intelligence
«Intelligence. Magazine illustration.» Discussion: Even though “Intelligence” could mean multiple things, the images clearly refer to the meaning of brain power. All four fit the description, in my opinion.
Result: English is a clear winner here.
Antique fun
«A Greek statue, stumbling over a cat.»
Discussion: Cats and statues clearly visible in all cases, three could be considered stumbling, two of them over the cat. (The “stumbling” part was clearly absent throughout the German original.)
Result: English again significantly better.
Neural network
«Neural Network.» Discussion: While none of these actually represent a neural network, I could imagine each of them being used as a teaser image for an article on the topic (even though the eyes in 2 and 4 are not parallel). Maybe they were actually taught from such teaser images… (The German originals were depicting neurons.)
«An ancient Egyptian painting, depicting a fight over whose turn it is to take out the trash.» The first four images were accidentally created using a typo in the prompt: “Egyptioan”, so the set was redone without the typo.
Result: For once, I think German has had an advantage.
Sneakernet
«A modern sneaker made of clouds.» Description: The first two images use clouds for part of the shoe, for the third it’s decoration, and for the last, it reminds me of a little child hitting on its banana-flavored ice cream until it looks like a cauliflower. I find the German originals much more impressive, if slightly less accurate.
Result: Let’s call that one a tie.
The artist
«A robot at Paul Klee's typewriter.»«A robot at a typewriter by Paul Klee» This prompt’s translation is ambiguous, depending on how you would analyze the sentence: “Ein Roboter an der (Schreibmaschine von Paul Klee)” (parenthesis added for grouping) would be “A robot at Paul Klee’s typewriter”, as I had always imagined the sentence’s meaning. However, “A robot at a typewriter by Paul Klee”, derived from “(Ein Roboter an der Schreibmaschine) von Paul Klee”, might be the original prompt’s actual intention. So, your choice, both are here.
Description: The first prompt clearly and reliably matches the “robot at a typewriter” part, even the “at”, which was all but ignored in the German original. However, the second prompt looks much more artistic, more homogeneous in style within each image. The German original was more “original”, independent, more what a real artist would do given the prompt.
Result: Even if we give the German interpretation extra points for “free thinking”, the English versions would be much more likely to hang in a museum or a residence.
Crown jewels
«The Royal Skateboard of England, exhibited between the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.» I had been using the German originals as showcases for how the AI can “imagine” fictitious scenes no one has ever seen, because all it ever does is creating fictitious things. (Assigning human traits and concepts to AI, is wrong. So I shouldn’t have written “imagine” in the first place. But the flesh is weak…)
However, I was disappointed with the first set of “royal skateboards”: Not really royal, and all depicted from the underside, some with impossible mechanics. So I gave it two more chances with the same prompt.
«A robot reading a book, as a stained-glass window.» Description: In the German original, the “as a” part was causing confusion. In English, we have a perfect score, even with a second set.
Results: English wins hands down. Forget German here, it was not even qualified for the finals.
Bonus track: Scary doors
«Front door with crocodile» (second row without the “front”) As I have been using “Haustür mit Krokodil” (“(front) door with crocodile”) as a simple test whether AIs do understand German, here is what DALL•E 2 does with the English version.
“Crocodile” seems to add green color and crocodile texture to the images, even to (parts of) the door.
If you look closely at image number 2, you will see that the gray thing at the lower left is debris(?), even though it looks like a crocodile at first glance. Maybe the prompt was misunderstood as “croco-tile”… 😉
Lessons learned
As a word of warning, the number of images generated for this impromptu “study” is way too small to be able to come to solid conclusions. So take any of these conclusions with plenty of skepticism.
The German text concluded:
Nouns are fulfilled, everything else is pure luck. The images rarely matched the description, but all were beautiful.
For English, nouns rendering remains very good. In addition, the relationship between the items is often more accurately reflected (with exceptions). This is especially prominent with stained glass.
“AI psychology”
Some early assumptions on “AI psychology”:
What we already “know” is that today’s generative AIs are unable to tell the user that they did not understand the instructions. Instead, they will just spin a tale. This tale may be self-consistent, but may bear little or no relationship to the original prompt.
We “know” that too little training data will make it hard for the AI to create a meaningful scene. This is presumably the reason for “stained glass” failing in German while getting a perfect score in English; but also in the “stumbling” being rendered inaccurately or not at all.
However, the English skateboard coming in unusual poses “might” (a lot of speculation here!) be case of too much available data, including in unusual poses. And if you ask for something unusual, these poses might be more likely to be chosen. (But it could also just be an artifact of the small sample size used here.)
A pattern I felt emerge: Making the sentence hard to understand will provide the AI with more leeway for interpretation. So, sentences it does not understand (the MidJourney “crocodile” example) or it understands less well (the German “Paul Klee” examples?) will result in images with more “artistic freedom”. This can be an advantage, if you can free yourself from trying to convince the AI to reach your pre-set goal.
You may know the following expression:
What’s worse than a tool that doesn’t work? One that does work, nearly perfectly, except when it fails in unpredictable and subtle ways.
However, if all you plan to do is create something for the beauty of it, and are willing to spend some time in weeding out what you do not consider nice enough, AI image generation is a great (and enjoyable) helper. Or time-waster… Anyway: Enjoy these images, and the ones you might create.
DIY
Did I whet your mouth? Here are some tools you might want to try:
Craiyon, using its “predecessor” DALL•E mini: Free, low resolution, no login necessary. Ideal for learning the ropes.
Stable Diffusion (Huggingface): „Stable Diffusion“ uses different mechanics behind the scenes. Free, low resolution, no login necessary; “pro” version available without these limits.
Stable Diffusion (Replicate): Another Stable Diffusion model, with plenty of knobs to turn. Free, low resolution, no login necessary; “pro” version available without these limits.
MidJourney: Different concept, different UI: Send messages in a Discord group chat. The AI will answer in the group chat, giving you options to refine the images further.
This is the time to catch up on what you missed during the year. For some, it is meeting the family. For others, doing snowsports. For even others, it is cuddling up and reading. This is an article for the latter.
If you wanted your web page excluded from being crawled or indexed by search engines and other robots, robots.txt was your tool of choice, with some additional stuff like <meta name=”robots” value=”noindex” /> or <a href=”…” rel=”nofollow”> sprinkled in. It is getting more complicated with AI crawlers. Let’s have a look.
In a recent discussion, it became apparent that «unlearning» is not something machine learning models can easily do. So what does this mean to laws like the EU «Right to be Forgotten»?
ChatGPT is arguably the most powerful artificial intelligence language model currently available. We take a behind-the-scenes look at how the “large language model” GPT-3 and ChatGPT, which is based on it, work.
AI art is on the rise, both in terms of quality and quantity. It (unfortunately) lies in human nature to market some of that as genuine art. Here are some signs that can help identifying AI art.
Inspired by an NZZ Folio article on AI text and image generation using DALL•E 2, I tried to reproduce the (German) prompts. Someone suggested that English prompts would work better. Here is the comparison.
User provides a prompt and negative prompt description; the application generates images based on the text. Users can also adjust the guidance scale to influence the quality.
If you wanted your web page excluded from being crawled or indexed by search engines and other robots, [url=https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html]robots.txt[/url] was your tool of choice, with some additional stuff like <meta name="robots" value="noindex" /> or [url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/rel#nofollow]<a href="…" rel="nofollow">[/url] sprinkled in.
It is getting more complicated with AI crawlers. Let’s have a look.
One of the first goals of robots.txt was to prevent web crawlers from hogging the bandwidth and compute power of a web site. Especially if the site contained dynamically generated context, possibly infinite.
Another important goal was to prevent pages or their content from being found using search engines. There, the above-mentioned <meta> and [url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/rel#nofollow]<a rel>[/url] tags came in handy as well.
A non-goal was to use it for access control, even though it was frequently misunderstood to be useful for that purpose.
New challenges
Changes over time
The original controls focused on services which would re-inspect the robots.txt file and the web page on a regular basis and update it accordingly.
None of these new features are implemented yet, neither in a web servers or CMS, nor by crawlers. So we need workarounds.
[Added 2023-08-31] Another upcoming “standard” is [url=https://site.spawning.ai/spawning-ai-txt]ai.txt[/url], modeled after robots.txt. It distinguishes among media types and tries to fulfill the EU TDM directive. In a web search today, I did not find crawler support for it, either.
Seen active in the wild, behavior (and whether it respects robots.txt) unclear [Added 2023-12-31, unconfirmed]
Please let me know when additional information becomes available.
An unknown entity calling itself “Bit Flip LLC” (no other identifying information found anywhere), is maintaining an interactive list at DarkVisitors.com. Looks good, but leaves a bad taste. Use at your own judgment. [Added 2024-04-14]
Control comparison
Search engines and social networks support quite a bit of control over what is indexed and how it is used/presented.
Prevent crawling by robots.txt, HTML tags, and paywalls.
For use of AI context, most of this is lacking and “move fast and break things” is still the motto. Giving users fine-grained control over how their content is used would help with the discussions.
Even though the users in the end might decide they actually do want to have (most or all) of their context indexed for AI and other text processing…
Example robots.txt
[Added 2023-09-30] Here is a possible /robots.txt file for your web site, with comments on when to enable: # Used for many other (non-commercial) purposes as wellUser-agent: CCBotDisallow: /# For new training onlyUser-agent: GPTBotDisallow: /# Not for training, only for user requests User-agent: ChatGPT-UserDisallow: /# Marker for disabling Bard and Vertex AIUser-agent: Google-ExtendedDisallow: /# Speech synthesis only?User-agent: FacebookBotDisallow: /# Multi-purpose, commercial uses; including LLMsUser-agent: OmgilibotDisallow: /
Poisoning [Added 2023-11-04]
A different, more aggressive approach, is to start «poisoning» the AI models; something currently only supported for images. The basic idea is to use adversary images, that will be misclassified when ingested into the AI training and will therefore try and disrupt the training data and the resulting model.
It works by subtly changing the image, imperceptible to the human. The result is, however, that e.g. a cat is misclassified as a dog, when training. If enough bad training data is ingested into the model, part or all of the wrongly trained features will be used. In our case, asking the AI image generator to produce a dog may result in the generated dog to look more like a cat.
The “Nightshade” tool that is supposed to be released soon, which has this capability, is an extension of the current “Glaze” tool, which only results in image style misclassification. AI Poisoning example from the Glaze team via Ars Technica Judge for yourself whether this disruptive and potentially damaging approach aligns with your ethical values before using it.
Major challenges in computer and information security are the advent of quantum computers and the need to trust your data to (cloud) service providers. New cryptography is supposed to help, but they look daunting. At their core, however, they are just children’s riddles. An introduction to Lattice cryptography and Learning With Errors.
Two big challenges are faced by information security:
Cryptographers are afraid that quantum computers may be able to break existing public-key cryptography easily, a few years from now. As public-key cryptography is at the heart of almost every information security mechanism, something needs to be done. And for secrets which should remain secret for many years or decades, we need solutions now. These solutions are called Quantum-safe or Pos
... mehr anzeigen
Post Quantum and Homomorphic Encryption made easy
Major challenges in computer and information security are the advent of quantum computers and the need to trust your data to (cloud) service providers. New cryptography is supposed to help, but they look daunting. At their core, however, they are just children’s riddles. An introduction to Lattice cryptography and Learning With Errors.
Two big challenges are faced by information security:
Cryptographers are afraid that quantum computers may be able to break existing public-key cryptography easily, a few years from now. As public-key cryptography is at the heart of almost every information security mechanism, something needs to be done. And for secrets which should remain secret for many years or decades, we need solutions now. These solutions are called Quantum-safe or Post-Quantum cryptosystems.
Cloud computing, smart cards and the Internet of Things have a common problem: You may need to process data on platforms which are in the hands of someone else. Trust in those devices and their owners or operators is necessary, but there is no way to test whether they are violating your trust. It would be great if sensitive data would not need to be processed on these systems, if instead, they could operate on encrypted versions of the data. This is the promise behind (Fully) Homomorphic Encryption: Performing mathematical operations on the encrypted data, with the results remaining encrypted; essentially, the holy grail for trustworthy computing.
When trying to learn about Quantum-resistant cryptography or Homomorphic Encryption, the terms Lattice-based Cryptography and Learning With Errors quickly pop up. However, the descriptions I was able to found on the Internet try to discourage any normal reader from understanding it: As presented by those in the know, the math looks scary and complex; achieving magic looks trivial by comparison.
However, at their core, they are just coordinate systems and children’s riddles.
So, let me give you an intuition into how they work, explained even for those who hate math. And conclude with what that means.
You know coordinate systems from blueprints, maps, you name it. They are easy:
The coordinate axes are orthogonal to each other (and parallel to the edges of the sheet or screen)
The measurement system (or spacing) along the coordinate axes is the same (e.g., x coordinate 1 is at the same distance from the origin than y coordinate 1, just in a different direction)
The coordinate systems are linear (i.e., the distance from 0 to 1 is the same as from 3 to 4)
Left: A “normal” two-dimensional coordinate system with orthogonal, linear and proportional axes, labeled X and Y, as almost any coordinate system we will deal with in real life. Adding two vectors (arrows) of length 1 aligned to the axes, A and B, allows us to follow a series of these arrows to the destination. Right: For example, to get to the point indicated by the middle red arrow, at X coordinate 2 and Y coordinate 1, we follow twice the step indicated by arrow A (dark blue) and once the step indicated by arrow B (cyan). In math terms, the distance between the origin and the point at (2, 1) is 2*A+1*B. This all seems natural, because we are used to it and they are made to be easy on us. The lattices used for encryption will just add a few twists to them, which we will introduce.
Twisting the vectors
That was easy. You may even have wondered why we talk about that at all. So let’s look at slightly different vectors A and B: Left: Our vector A is no longer aligned to the X axis. Right: But we still can reach any integer coordinate (marked by the green dots) using an integer multiple of A and B vectors. The same point at coordinate (2, 1) can now be reached by following twice along the distance and direction of A and then following once in the reverse direction of B. In math terms, that point is at 2*A–1*B. The new coordinate system is a slight nuisance, but still easy to handle. (In fact, using a simple formula, any (x, y) coordinate pair can be easily transformed into the number of A’s and B’s to add.)
In the same spirit, let’s continue twisting the vectors further: Left: The vectors are now almost aligned. Right: We can still address our three points (and in fact, any integer coordinate pair) using a weighted sum of our two basis vectors, A and B. For example, the point at (–2, –2) can be reached by first following A once forward, the twice B backward, then again once A forward, resulting in 2*A–2*B. (The A-B-B-A order in the figure is just to keep the intermediaries inside the drawing; they can be arbitrarily reordered.) This point is easily reachable, the point at (2, 1) which we reached using three steps each in the previous examples, would now require a stunning 17 steps. With these two almost-aligned basis vectors, it becomes hard to determine the number of A and B steps to take. Some might be reminded of the complexity to move to a given location with a knight on a chess board.
Not all points are valid
In the previous section, all integer coordinates were reachable, because the vector pairs were carefully selected to enable this. Choosing vectors randomly would rarely result in this property. For example, after a slight variation of the second set of vectors above, only every second point is reachable, checkerboard-style. After doubling the length of B (left) or turning B as well (right), every other point in the coordinate systems becomes unreachable. As hard as you try, you will never get to any of the hollow points. (The right-hand image might remind you of the reachable squares of the black bishop in chess.) By choosing longer vector lengths, you will generally create even sparser lattices. (This is a general rule. Let’s gloss over how to guarantee a certain sparseness; but it involves things like the relationships between the prime factors of the vectors’ coordinates.)
More dimensions
So what happens when we make these vectors more complicated, both in their sheer number (and thus, also their number of dimensions) and their length? It becomes even harder.
Humans can easily deal with two, sometimes three dimensions. Switching to dozens or even hundreds of dimensions and having longer vectors makes it very hard to determine:
which coordinates are reachable at all,
how this coordinate can be reached, and, especially,
The latter property is known as the closest vector problem and is at the heart of Lattice-based cryptography.
Lattice-based cryptography
The closest vector problem is hard to solve for a complex set of basis vectors. However, if you have a simple set of basis vectors, as we started off in the first few examples, it becomes easy to solve. Having such a pair of complex and simple problems is at the heart of public-key cryptography.
So in essence, Lattice-based public-key cryptography works as follows:
Alice creates a set of simple basis vectors in a high-dimensional space, which does not cover all of the space (think of a checkerboard with most squares white; black ones only few and far between, with no visible pattern to their placement). This is her private key, in which the closest vector problem is easy to solve.
Alice also creates a second set of basis vectors, each vector built by weighted addition of many of her simple vectors. This is her public key, where it is still easy to create a valid point, but it is hard to determine whether a given point is valid or not (and where it is also hard to solve the closest vector problem).
Alice publishes her public key and keeps her private key private (just as with any other public-key cryptosystem).
Bob, wishing to encrypt a message to Alice, uses her public vectors to encode the message. For example, he could use the first byte of the message to multiply the first public basis vector with, the second byte for the second vector, and so on. Summing up all vectors will lead to a valid lattice point.
Bob then slightly and randomly moves that encrypted data point, such that it is off-lattice now.
He then sends that message to Alice.
Any eavesdropper will only know the public, complicated, basis vectors and will be unable to solve the closest vector problem.
However, Alice, with access to the private key, can solve the closest vector problem easily and therefore reverse-engineer (1) the actual data point and (2) what factors Bob used to multiply the basis vectors with, and thus the bytes of the message.
(In case you wonder: As is common in cryptography, these operations are all done in modular arithmetic.)
Learning with Errors
As a riddle (without errors)
A mother has two children. The girl is twice the age of the boy. Together, they have are 18 years old. How old are the children?
Simple children’s riddle, which can be solved using linear equations.
The riddle can be solved by trial and error, or using a set of linear equations, where B is the age of the boy and G is the age of the girl:
2*B – G = 0 B + G = 18
After solving this linear system for B and G, we get G=12 and B=6. Here, we learned the age of the children without errors.
Properties of linear equation systems
That was easy. In general, linear equations are easy: With enough equations, they can be solved in a well-defined, straightforward manner, even if you increase the number of variables into the millions or billions.
“Enough equations” generally means that the number of equations need to be at least equal to the variables. (Equations that can be formed by weighted addition of other equations don’t count—i.e., those that are linear dependent on others—as they do not add new information.)
More information may not necessarily be better: If a third equation, “3*B + G = 100”, were to be added, this equation would conflict with the other two, as 3*12 + 6 = 42, which obviously does not equal 100. However, each of the three pairs would have a valid solution. In this case, they would be vastly different from each other.
For cryptography (with errors)
With these conflicts, we are on the right track toward a cryptographic puzzle. The basic idea behind learning with errors is as follows:
Have a set of linear equations
Increase the number of variables to be huge (into the many thousands or even millions)
Add more valid equations, significantly beyond the number of variables. (They will automatically be linear combinations of the initial set, not adding additional information.)
And now the magic part: Slightly jiggle the constants
A riddle with turtles
A mother turtle has two children. The girl is twice the age of the boy. Together, they are 180 years old. How old are the children?
Slightly more complicated children’s riddle, which can still be solved using linear equations (or, guessing)
The ages are ten times those of the human children, but otherwise things stay the same. We also add a third equation which agrees with the other two equations. (It automatically is a linear combination of the first two. In this case, twice the first equation plus seven times the second equation equals three times the third equation.)
However, now we slightly change the right-hand sides of the equation, adding or subtracting a small number: All of the equations now still almost match the girl and boy ages of 120 and 60 years, respectively, but no pair of equations matches the exact numbers or even just the third equation. Picking any pair of equations, however, gives a good estimate of the real result. With these approximations, you can perform further calculations and, as long as we are careful, the results will be close to the correct results as well. But we will never know the exact numbers. (And rounding to the nearest multiple of ten only works in this toy example.)
Learning-with-errors based public-key cryptography
To build a public-key cryptosystem, the correct values of the variables can be used as the private key and the jiggled equations as the public key. Same as in the Lattice above, the cryptographic operations are done in modular arithmetic. The lower equation a linear combination of the equations above. In this case, the sum of 5 times the first, 3 times the second, and (–1) times the third equation.
Alice chooses a modulus and creates private and public keys; she publishes the public keys and the modulus (let’s assume it to be M=89).
For each encrypted bit that Bob wants to send to Alice, Bob creates a new, unique equation as a random, non-trivial linear combination of a subset of the equations forming the public key. (For example, the lowest equation in the image above.)
To communicate a bit with a value of zero, Bob transmits this base equation as-is (of course, modulo M, so the the 131 would turn into 131 mod 89=42).
To communicate a bit with a value of one, Bob transmits base equation modified by adding roughly half the modulus, again modulo M (half of M would be roughly 44, so 42+44=86 would be transmitted as the right-hand side of the equation).
When receiving an equation, Alice can easily compute the correct value for the right-hand side of the equation from the left-hand-side coefficients (5 and –8, in the case of the linear combination created above). The correct result here would be 120 (=5*120–8*60); modulo M that would be 31.
When the difference between the transmitted and the correct value is small (in this case, 42–31=11), the equation is decrypted into a bit valued 0; if the difference is high (close to ½M), the equation is decrypted into a bit valued 1.
Given the right parameters, this decryption is easy for Alice and impossibly hard for anyone else; exactly how we want public-key cryptography to be like.
Many current (“classical”) public-key algorithms (RSA, Diffie-Hellman, ECC, …) rely on it being hard to find the (large) prime factors of a composite number. A powerful quantum computer running Shor’s Algorithm would be able to factor these numbers quickly and thus break public-key cryptography. As data encrypted today might still need to remain safe even when powerful quantum computers will be available (at least several years from now), such data need to stop using these “classical” public-key algorithms.
The goal of homomorphic encryption is to separate the provisioning of computing power from the right to access the data in the clear: Calculations on (encrypted) data can be performed on a computer without the computer needing to decrypt and re-encrypt the data. In fact, without the computer even having the key (and thus the ability) to decrypt the data.
One of the earliest cryptosystems which allowed some simple forms of homomorphic encryption was RSA. In “textbook RSA“, (modular) multiplication can be performed on the encrypted data. For most application, this “malleability” is undesirable and needs to be actively prevented by making sure that the decryption of a homomorphically-multiplied message has an illegal format.
Lattice-based cryptosystems are much better suited for homomorphic encryption, as they can support multiple operations, not just multiplication. But the property of malleability remains, so in the encrypted state, almost any operation could be performed on the encrypted data. You still have to trust that the right operations were performed when using the decrypted result.
Learning With Errors does not currently seem usable for FHE.
Conclusion
You learnt the basics of two cryptographic primitives that will be important in the future. And you learnt two applications. So you are well prepared for the future. I hope you enjoyed the minimum math! (If you insist on these two topics being explained with just a little bit more math, read on and watch the linked videos.)
They are great and provide some additional information.
I would like to thank DALL•E 2 for the teaser image it created using the prompt “Post-Quantum Encryption without text”. Yes, it seems that “without text” was ignored, as it does not seem to understand the concept of “text” at all, and fails to recognize that it does not recognize (part of) the prompt, as image generation AI seems to be prone to do. Also, the concept of negation (“without”) seems to be hard for AI; but then again, it is hard for humans: You might remember experimenting with “do not think of a pink elephant” in your childhood. And failing to not think of a pink elephant…
Einen verwandten Artikel (eigentlich sein Vorgänger) gibt es auf Deutsch 🇩🇪: «Reproduzierbare KI: Ein Selbstversuch». Darüber findet man auch mehr Informationen zu KI.
By trying to reproduce the original prompts, an estimate on #2 was possible. (My guess: Several of the images required multiple or even many attempts.)
Trying to switch languages can help give a hint on part of question #1: Whether switching language simplifies finding the right prompt.
“Haustür mit Krokodil” (“front door with crocodile”) according to MidJourney. The “Krok” neon lighting is the only reference to the prompt I could find.
A side lesson from the experiments in German: Current generative AI have no possibility to report, “Huh?”. They just do their best. And if, as in this image, MidJourney does not understand the German prompt at all (“Haustür mit Krokodil”, i.e., “front door with crocodile”) it just creates anything. (For artistic image generation, this may be acceptable behavior. But not in many other scenarios where we use AI, now or in the future.)
When looking at the images here, you may want to have the original German article side-by-side for direct comparison.
Railway station
«A robot reading a newspaper outside in a Swiss city while waiting for the train. Large-size photography, Jeff Wall style. Very detailed. Very high resolution. Linhof Master Technika Classic. Hasselblad. 80 mm.» After generating the first four images, I found the railway stations to be much more “Swiss” than those created from the German prompt. The houses, the hedges, the walls, the streets: Clearly Swiss; those created from the German prompt, on the other hand, looked much more generic and could be in many other (European) countries instead.
I only noticed the lack of Swissness in comparison to these stunning images. So I wanted to be sure and made two additional sets with identical prompts (DALL•E 2 always creates a set of four independent images for each prompt). If you look closely, you can find some non-Swiss items here, such as the clock in image 6 or the pole in image 7.
To make sure that the originally chosen perspective for the German prompts was not the reason for lack of Swissness, I created another set with the original German prompt: «Ein Roboter liest draussen in einer Schweizer Stadt eine Zeitung, während er auf den Zug wartet. Grossformatige Fotografie im Stil von Jeff Wall. Sehr detailliert. Sehr hohe Auflösung. Linhof Master Technika Classic. Hasselblad. 80 mm.» Several of the newly generated German-prompt images were much more Swiss: I found number 3 to be particularly Swiss with the overhead line gantry. The ticket vending machine(?) in the first image, however, is a weird combination of equipment, some of them reminding of actual Swiss vending machines (such as the top cover).
Conclusion: The original German results showed a lack of Swissness, but it may be partly due to the selection of angles. The new German results seem somewhat more Swiss, but the English prompts feel delightfully home.
Result: English wins.
Intelligence
«Intelligence. Magazine illustration.» Discussion: Even though “Intelligence” could mean multiple things, the images clearly refer to the meaning of brain power. All four fit the description, in my opinion.
Result: English is a clear winner here.
Antique fun
«A Greek statue, stumbling over a cat.»
Discussion: Cats and statues clearly visible in all cases, three could be considered stumbling, two of them over the cat. (The “stumbling” part was clearly absent throughout the German original.)
Result: English again significantly better.
Neural network
«Neural Network.» Discussion: While none of these actually represent a neural network, I could imagine each of them being used as a teaser image for an article on the topic (even though the eyes in 2 and 4 are not parallel). Maybe they were actually taught from such teaser images… (The German originals were depicting neurons.)
«An ancient Egyptian painting, depicting a fight over whose turn it is to take out the trash.» The first four images were accidentally created using a typo in the prompt: “Egyptioan”, so the set was redone without the typo.
Result: For once, I think German has had an advantage.
Sneakernet
«A modern sneaker made of clouds.» Description: The first two images use clouds for part of the shoe, for the third it’s decoration, and for the last, it reminds me of a little child hitting on its banana-flavored ice cream until it looks like a cauliflower. I find the German originals much more impressive, if slightly less accurate.
Result: Let’s call that one a tie.
The artist
«A robot at Paul Klee's typewriter.»«A robot at a typewriter by Paul Klee» This prompt’s translation is ambiguous, depending on how you would analyze the sentence: “Ein Roboter an der (Schreibmaschine von Paul Klee)” (parenthesis added for grouping) would be “A robot at Paul Klee’s typewriter”, as I had always imagined the sentence’s meaning. However, “A robot at a typewriter by Paul Klee”, derived from “(Ein Roboter an der Schreibmaschine) von Paul Klee”, might be the original prompt’s actual intention. So, your choice, both are here.
Description: The first prompt clearly and reliably matches the “robot at a typewriter” part, even the “at”, which was all but ignored in the German original. However, the second prompt looks much more artistic, more homogeneous in style within each image. The German original was more “original”, independent, more what a real artist would do given the prompt.
Result: Even if we give the German interpretation extra points for “free thinking”, the English versions would be much more likely to hang in a museum or a residence.
Crown jewels
«The Royal Skateboard of England, exhibited between the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.» I had been using the German originals as showcases for how the AI can “imagine” fictitious scenes no one has ever seen, because all it ever does is creating fictitious things. (Assigning human traits and concepts to AI, is wrong. So I shouldn’t have written “imagine” in the first place. But the flesh is weak…)
However, I was disappointed with the first set of “royal skateboards”: Not really royal, and all depicted from the underside, some with impossible mechanics. So I gave it two more chances with the same prompt.
«A robot reading a book, as a stained-glass window.» Description: In the German original, the “as a” part was causing confusion. In English, we have a perfect score, even with a second set.
Results: English wins hands down. Forget German here, it was not even qualified for the finals.
Bonus track: Scary doors
«Front door with crocodile» (second row without the “front”) As I have been using “Haustür mit Krokodil” (“(front) door with crocodile”) as a simple test whether AIs do understand German, here is what DALL•E 2 does with the English version.
“Crocodile” seems to add green color and crocodile texture to the images, even to (parts of) the door.
If you look closely at image number 2, you will see that the gray thing at the lower left is debris(?), even though it looks like a crocodile at first glance. Maybe the prompt was misunderstood as “croco-tile”… 😉
Lessons learned
As a word of warning, the number of images generated for this impromptu “study” is way too small to be able to come to solid conclusions. So take any of these conclusions with plenty of skepticism.
The German text concluded:
Nouns are fulfilled, everything else is pure luck. The images rarely matched the description, but all were beautiful.
For English, nouns rendering remains very good. In addition, the relationship between the items is often more accurately reflected (with exceptions). This is especially prominent with stained glass.
“AI psychology”
Some early assumptions on “AI psychology”:
What we already “know” is that today’s generative AIs are unable to tell the user that they did not understand the instructions. Instead, they will just spin a tale. This tale may be self-consistent, but may bear little or no relationship to the original prompt.
We “know” that too little training data will make it hard for the AI to create a meaningful scene. This is presumably the reason for “stained glass” failing in German while getting a perfect score in English; but also in the “stumbling” being rendered inaccurately or not at all.
However, the English skateboard coming in unusual poses “might” (a lot of speculation here!) be case of too much available data, including in unusual poses. And if you ask for something unusual, these poses might be more likely to be chosen. (But it could also just be an artifact of the small sample size used here.)
A pattern I felt emerge: Making the sentence hard to understand will provide the AI with more leeway for interpretation. So, sentences it does not understand (the MidJourney “crocodile” example) or it understands less well (the German “Paul Klee” examples?) will result in images with more “artistic freedom”. This can be an advantage, if you can free yourself from trying to convince the AI to reach your pre-set goal.
You may know the following expression:
What’s worse than a tool that doesn’t work? One that does work, nearly perfectly, except when it fails in unpredictable and subtle ways.
However, if all you plan to do is create something for the beauty of it, and are willing to spend some time in weeding out what you do not consider nice enough, AI image generation is a great (and enjoyable) helper. Or time-waster… Anyway: Enjoy these images, and the ones you might create.
DIY
Did I whet your mouth? Here are some tools you might want to try:
Craiyon, using its “predecessor” DALL•E mini: Free, low resolution, no login necessary. Ideal for learning the ropes.
Stable Diffusion (Huggingface): „Stable Diffusion“ uses different mechanics behind the scenes. Free, low resolution, no login necessary; “pro” version available without these limits.
Stable Diffusion (Replicate): Another Stable Diffusion model, with plenty of knobs to turn. Free, low resolution, no login necessary; “pro” version available without these limits.
MidJourney: Different concept, different UI: Send messages in a Discord group chat. The AI will answer in the group chat, giving you options to refine the images further.
This is the time to catch up on what you missed during the year. For some, it is meeting the family. For others, doing snowsports. For even others, it is cuddling up and reading. This is an article for the latter.
If you wanted your web page excluded from being crawled or indexed by search engines and other robots, robots.txt was your tool of choice, with some additional stuff like <meta name=”robots” value=”noindex” /> or <a href=”…” rel=”nofollow”> sprinkled in. It is getting more complicated with AI crawlers. Let’s have a look.
In a recent discussion, it became apparent that «unlearning» is not something machine learning models can easily do. So what does this mean to laws like the EU «Right to be Forgotten»?
ChatGPT is arguably the most powerful artificial intelligence language model currently available. We take a behind-the-scenes look at how the “large language model” GPT-3 and ChatGPT, which is based on it, work.
AI art is on the rise, both in terms of quality and quantity. It (unfortunately) lies in human nature to market some of that as genuine art. Here are some signs that can help identifying AI art.
Inspired by an NZZ Folio article on AI text and image generation using DALL•E 2, I tried to reproduce the (German) prompts. Someone suggested that English prompts would work better. Here is the comparison.
User provides a prompt and negative prompt description; the application generates images based on the text. Users can also adjust the guidance scale to influence the quality.
There was a DEFCON Voting Village panel «If I can shop online, why can’t I vote online?» which I found extremely important to read or listen to. Not just for me, in fact, for anyone talking about electronic voting. Here is a transcript for those who prefer reading (or searching for keywords).
There was a DEFCON Voting Village panel «If I can shop online, why can’t I vote online?» which I found extremely important to read or listen to. Not just for me, in fact, for anyone talking about electronic voting. Here is a transcript for those who prefer reading (or searching for keywords).
The transcript has received minor editorial changes: Placeholders (“uh”, “you know”, …), repetitions, self-corrections, etc. have been removed in order to improve readability. Text in angle quotes («…») would be indirect speech in a written text; from the context, it is meant to be a summary/rephrashing of someone else’s statement, illustrated by a change of tone, not as a direct quote.
Chunks that are related to the organization of the panel and that are unrelated to the content have been removed for clarity.
Bold text and section headings have been added by me to help you navigate the arguments or point out what I believe are important take-home messages.
But now, let’s switch to the transcript:
Introduction
Susan Greenhalgh (00:08): I’m Susan Greenhalgh, I’m the senior advisor for election security at Free Speech For People. We are a national nonpartisan not-for-profit legal advocacy organization that works protect elections and democracy for all the people. We have a Proprogram which focuses on Election security and I’ve done a lot of work on internet voting for over 15 years studying the policies and practices and written several reports on it. I’m here to talk about this issue with our esteemed panel.
First starting with David Jefferson: Dr David Jefferson, who is a researcher from Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, retired. In 1999 to 2000, he was the co-chair of the California Secretary of State’s task force on internet voting. He’ll talk a little bit more about that. He was the one of the co-authors of the peer review that was done on the Department of Defense’s SERVE internet voting system in 2004, which ultimately resulted in the Department of Defense canceling the project. and he can talk a little bit about that. It was a 22 million dollar project that was ultimately shut down and he’s been writing, speaking, and testifying in opposition internet voting ever since. So that’s David.
Next we have Matt Blaze, professor at Georgetown University School of Computer Science and Law. He is also co-founder of the Village and he’s been working in election security for two decades and especially interested in the impact of complex software systems on security and reliability.
And Harri Hursti, also co-founder of the Defcon Voting Village. He is the OG in election security reviews, famously conducting the Hursti Hack back in the 2000s. He also was part of a team that reviewed the Estonian online voting system for security and traveled to Estonia to present the findings to people there.
So, we have an incredible panel and I will turn it over to David. Screenshot of David Jefferson’s talk. Click image to open the YouTube video at the beginning of his talk.
David Jefferson: Problem space
David Jefferson (03:12): So, first let me give you a summary up front of where I’m coming from. That which is, that it isn’t possible now or in the foreseeable future with any combination of technologies that we can envision today to secure an online voting system and so thus we shouldn’t be instituting internet voting anywhere in the U.S and we should really stop using it where it’s in use today.
National security
Voting of course is a national security issue: The legitimacy of democratic government depends on voting being secure and and open. So we really cannot open our voting systems to the to the various kinds of threats I’m about to describe to you, many of which would open our elections to manipulation by Foreign actors.
So let me talk about what internet voting is first of all. What we mean by that is any voting system in which voted ballots are transmitted over the Internet; maybe one hop of the communication is just over the internet, but if it’s if voted ballots are ever transmitted over the internet in the course of running an election, it’s an internet voting system. It doesn’t matter whether it’s by email or fax or web or mobile app: Any scheme, doesn’t matter what the protocol is, if it’s transmitted over the Internet, it’s going to be vulnerable to the kinds of threats I’m about to describe.
Attack vectors
So let’s talk about those threats. What are the threats that we’re talking about? There are many of them.
The first one is authentication related threats. When you vote online, of course you have to identify yourself, so that you can be checked that you’re registered and that you haven’t already voted. So you have to actually identify yourself. That will have to be done online also and an attacker can can mess with that system, so that it makes it too difficult for people to authenticate themselves and they get disenfranchised; or too easy for people to authenticate themselves and phony voters can vote. So authentication threats, number one.
Number two and perhaps the most insidious is client-side malware. You’re going to be voting from some device—a phone or a PC or other mobile device—and that device might be infected with malware. And that malware might have the purpose of interfering with your voting, either preventing you from voting or modifying your votes before your votes even get out of the device. Before they’re encrypted for transmission, your votes can be modified: You wouldn’t know it, the election officials wouldn’t know it. That’s a profound problem, the client malware problem.
The third problem: The third kind of attack would be network attacks; attacking routers or DNS or other parts of the internet infrastructure. Where even if your ballots are transmitted, in progress, they can still be stopped or redirected or otherwise interfered with.
There are spoofing attacks, where you’re tricked into voting to an incorrect site: A site which may look like the real site, but which is not. And and you think you voted, but you didn’t, and you don’t know whether your vote was transmitted or modified or just thrown away.
There are denial of service attacks, where the server that receives votes is overwhelmed with a lot of of fake ballots, sent to it by an attacker. It’s so overwhelmed that the service slows down. It may slow down to the point where voters get timeouts and they can’t vote at all; or the server just crashes.
There are server penetration attacks, where an attacker actually gains control remotely of the server that’s accepting the ballots and when he gains control he can do anything he wants.
Many of these attacks can be Insider-aided, but insiders would include election officials and programmers and so on. There are many variations of all of these attacks.
No strong defenses now, …
Now, there are no strong defenses to most of these attacks; there just are no strong defenses. There are ameliorations, there are ways of handling certain special cases of these attacks. But there are no general solutions with technology that we have today.
They rest on some profound problems in computer science which Matt is going to tell you about in the in the next talk. These are the same threats that we encountered 25 years ago when I was the chair of the California Secretary of State’s Internet Voting Task force and they’re why we recommended that California not Institute internet voting in 1999.
… and probably never
These threats haven’t really changed materially in the last 25 years and they may not change materially in the next 25 years; they are that intractable! Now, the problem is that all of these attacks that I mentioned can be automated and scaled up to massive scale. Depending upon technical details of the architecture of the voting system, the attacks can come from anywhere on Earth, including rival nation states or our own domestic partisans.
Attack detection/identification
Successful attacks may go completely undetected; but if they are detected, they may be completely uncorrectable without running the election over again.
The perpetrators of the attack may never be identified. But even if they are identified, they’re likely to be out of reach of U.S. law—as the 12 Russians, who are under indictment for interfering with the 2020 election are out of reach of U.S. law.
So the problems with Internet voting are profound and I’m going to now turn it over to Matt so he can talk more about that subject. Thank you! Screenshot from Matt Blaze talking. Click image to hear him talk.
Matt Blaze: IT security
Matt Blaze (09:27): So thanks, David! I just want to expand on what some of the stuff that David was talking about. He mentioned fundamental problems. And as a scientist or as an engineer, when somebody says, “that’s a theoretical problem,” we understand it to be different from when the general public uses the term “theoretical problem”.
A theoretical problem in normal life is one you don’t really have to worry about; a theoretical problem in science and engineering is the worst possible kind. Right, it’s the kind that is fundamental to the system; that it’s something that you cannot do anything about without either changing the assumptions or compromising on what the requirements are.
Fundamental, unsolvable problems
And there are two sets of fundamental problems:
The first set of fundamental problems are computer science problems and all of the problems in voting—in building a secure voting system—that we encounter from an engineering point of view, are problems that actually were around before voting was an application. People were even considering there is a fundamental theorem in computer science that essentially says, “it is impossible to compare a program with its specification and understand whether it meets it”. And this is not a problem that we simply haven’t worked hard enough to try to solve; it’s a problem that we know that we cannot solve. We will never be able to solve it! And what is the implication of that, is that general purpose complex software can never be assured to be completely correct. Now, that mostly doesn’t bother us for all sorts of applications of computing that we rely on for many things. In fact, the title of this panel «I can bank online; why can’t I vote online?» is an example of that. We rely on the same flawed computing systems for things like banking, so, why is it we’re able to get away with it? And the short answer is: We don’t. Right, bank fraud is enormously common; right, banks are robbed online all the time; there are identity theft and so on constantly.
The difference is a second set of fundamental problems which is the voting application itself has a set of incredibly stringent and in fact somewhat contradictory requirements for building a voting system. One of them is that your vote must be anonymous and it must be anonymous to the point where you can’t even voluntarily prove who you voted for. And that requirement exists to prevent people from being able to be coerced into voting a particular way or being able to sell their vote. And there’s a long history—even in the United States, prior to that requirement existing—of people having their franchise coerced away from them, because it’s possible to tell how someone voted. Banking transactions don’t have that requirement. A banking transaction is reversible. If money disappears from your bank account, it’s possible to be made whole again; but if your vote is changed, after it’s been cast, we don’t know whose it was. And you have no way as a voter of proving how your particular vote was cast in order to be able to correct that. And if that changed, you’d be able to prove how you voted.
Impossible reliability
So we have these two sets of fundamental problems clashing with each other: The first is, we don’t know how to build systems that are reliable enough to avoid problems like this; and the second is, voting requires us to build systems that avoid problems like this rather than correct them after the fact. And this combined with the fact that an online voting system requires using complex computer technology means that this is a problem that we won’t be able to solve no matter how hard we work at.
It’s not that we’re just not very smart, it’s that these problems are beyond human capacity.
Accepting the risks?
Where that leaves us is,
we have to recognize that online voting is intrinsically very risky,
that it will lead to elections that we will never be able to satisfactorily show were conducted without fraud, without hacking, and that the outcome is genuinely true.
And that will always be with us when we do it that way, unless we relax some very important requirements of voting systems.
So, by the way, I’m not the only one saying this. There was a report from the National Academy of Sciences called “Securing the Vote”, where the top experts in the field got together and produced what’s called a “consensus report”. It essentially makes a very strong statement: «This is something we do not know how to do» and recommends against it wholesale.
Conclusion
So, those who propose online voting systems are essentially proposing something that [according to] the consensus of scientists is impossible.
So, we should understand it in that context. So, thanks! Screenshot from Harri Hursti’s talk. Click image to see him talk.
Harri Hursti: False promises
Harry Hursti (15:35): So internet voting is a whack-a-mole. It keeps on coming back and the argument is very often, say, well, we have this excuse: Shall we do just a little bit of Internet vote?
There’s two reasons why that’s not a good idea:
First of all, all the votes are one pool. The idea that I can vote insecurely myself, and that wouldn’t disenfranchise other voters, is a logical fallacy. Because if there’s only one result and if I’m choosing to make my own vote insecure, I’m also making everybody else’s vote vulnerable.
But there’s even more profound reason. A lot of nations, including the United States and a lot of states in the United States, but other nations have the same principle: that all voters should be voting with same method. So, once you are enabling the door that let’s have a little bit of Internet voting, the next step is to say, now everybody has to vote with internet voting because we cannot have separate methods. The common ways we are hearing always to give an excuse: What are the special groups who need to vote over the internet?
And one of the these in America is called UOCAVA Voters, Uniformed and Overseas Voters Empowerment Act [Transcriber’s note: Merge between UOCAVA and MOVE]. So, they are mainly the boys and girls in the military and who have a problem of getting the ballots done on time; however, this same problem is everywhere else in the world. And the other part is why UOCAVA is—or military voters in general are—a very good target for saying, “let’s do internet voting,” because in a lot of nations, military voters are not guaranteed to have secret ballot; it’s a best-effort basis only. So military voters don’t enjoy the same legal protections as the general public. And that also enables you to have a little bit more relaxed voting system, because you don’t have to guarantee secret ballots.
Another group is a very powerful lobbying group: The disabled voters and especially print disabled voters, so people who cannot read, cannot write, cannot hold a pen in their hand. There are a lot of devices, calling for example ballot marking devices, which are designed to access. But the idea is: Okay, well, let’s do that at home! Again, this whole path leads to a dual language, where a constant attempt is to call the voting not “internet voting”, but instead of calling it to be “electronic return of your ballot”. It’s the same thing. But the idea is, this is the way we sell the idea without getting into the trap of informing people that this is the bad idea again, internet voting.
Estonia
Internet voting has been claimed to be successful in Estonia. I went to Estonia with the professor Alex Halderman and a couple of other folks. We took a look in the system and it was a fairly decent high school project; that was the quality of the code.
However, there was a lot of interesting things in operations. For example, they rented the servers every year separately. So, from supply chain point of view, this one agency is renting three computers: That’s your target! The lowest bidder and you can poison all you want. There were a lot of designs in that area.
For example, they publish a video where a the code is signed cryptographically, so that the voters will know, this is an honest code. And they claim that this computer, where the video was taken, has never been connected to internet. But it had a µTorrent [Transcriber’s note: A BitTorrent Internet download software] and pirated movies and pirated films and online poker on the screen. So slightly suspicious that it might have been an intern.
Finland
In Finland, we tried internet voting or online voting. It was Kiosk Voting—but a system which can be used for internet loading too—in Three Counties and it was demonstrated that three and a half percent of the votes were lost and hence the election had to be reconducted, because three and a half percent in a what you call the Jefferson counting method means that it’s absolutely certain the last candidates in the city council will be [awarded to?] the wrong people.
«Young voters!»
The common excuse also is to claim that we need internet voting to activate young voters, young people who like mobile phones.
Estonia is a brilliant country from the point of view that they published age brackets. And when you look in Estonia, you see that the fastest growing group of Voters online is over 65 and the young voters are rejecting the idea of Internet voting. The same was [experienced] in Norway, so that the actual government public data doesn’t support the common wisdom that young voters would be activated by using internet voting.
«Understandable, verifiable»
Last but not least, I want to touch a very big topic. For example, in Europe and Germany, a lot of democracies have a rule that common person has to understand how votes are counted; and have to be able to verify the vote counting process with no special tools and education. Common man’s common knowledge has to be enough. Now, we are proposing very complex ideas like homomorphic encryption, blockchain, …
The joke in US is that the average age of poll workers [gets] one year older every year, because we don’t have enough young people coming to be a poll worker. But until we live in a Star Trek universe, where teenagers are casually talking about quantum mechanics: Who is going to be explaining to a 70 year old normal person, how homomorphic encryption works?
And in this today’s world, how could anyone believe that you could ever be getting normal people to accept these complex ideas, that even most of the experts don’t know how it works?
So let’s keep it simple. Thank you! Screenshot of Susan Greenhalgh’s talk. Click to hear her talk.
Susan Greenhalgh: History
Susan Greenhalgh (20:10): After hearing all of that, I’m guessing everyone probably thinks, «who would ever want to do internet voting for public governmental elections?»; but unfortunately, right now 32 states permit some subset of voters to vote online either by email, fax, or some sort of online portal. And there’s a lot of ballots coming back online! In the 2020 election, there were over 300 000 ballots cast online; and in some states with small margins, there were a significant number of ballots cast online. And this is a problem, because those ballots we know are not secure and they can’t be audited.
Trying to create
So, I want to talk a little bit about the policy in the history of how we got here and how it’s playing out today to understand our situation. As I mentioned in the intro, back in 2004, David was part of a security study that examined a system that was being put together by the Department of Defense to a military and overseas voters to vote online.
This was something that Congress tasked them to do this. They built a system, had a peer review of the security. The peer review said, this is not secure, you cannot ensure the legitimacy of ballots cast online. So the project was scrapped.
Standards first
Congress turned around and said: Okay, we’ll have NIST—National Institute of Standards and Technology—develop standards for a secure online voting system and then we’ll have the Department of Defense build to those standards. So NIST spent the later part of the 2000s and early 2010s studying the problem, writing several reports, and they came to the conclusion—that the scientists have all come to—that there’s this broad scientific consensus that these problems are really not solvable with the security tools that we have today.
And they wrote a statement saying, we don’t know how to write security standards, because we don’t know how to do internet voting securely. It’s not yet feasible, so we we’re not doing it. So Congress said «okay» a couple years later; because Congress moved slowly between 2014 and 2015. Congress repealed the directive to the Department of Defense to build an online voting system; essentially taking the federal government out of it.
We often hear: «Why isn’t the federal government studying it?» The answer is: They already did; asked and answered. So in the subsequent years we’ve seen more reports come out; in 2018, the National Academy study came out that Matt mentioned. There’s been numerous academic studies, there’s been some states have done their own studies.
Time and again, when the computer scientists and the security experts look at the problems, they realize that voting is not something that you can apply today’s security tools to, in a sufficient way to secure it. So, we’ve never come up with anyone that says, «Here this is a secure way to do it from a scientific perspective».
Policy before Possibility
Yet, in that early 2000s period of time and even the late 90s, there was a reasonable expectation that we were going to have a secure online voting system from the Department of Defense. So States passed laws to allow electronic ballot return. By 2010, I think 29 or 30 States already had electronic ballot return laws in place. So that was before NIST came up with their statement saying, «we can’t write security standards for this», and before the bulk of the scientific research that’s so conclusive had come out by. So, in the mid 2010s, we’d seen a kind of a slowdown in the movement for online voting; but now we’re in the middle of an aggressive push once again to have people vote online and that’s coming mainly from two places:
1. Bradley Tusk
First, there’s a guy named Bradley Tusk who is an Uber multi-millionaire: Made a bunch of money for Uber and he helped change their policies. Not a tech guy, he’s a policy guy. He helped change state laws to allow Uber ride share policies around the country. He also was responsible for changing state laws to allow sports betting on the FanDuel app. So he knows what he’s doing as far as changing state laws. And he’s decided that he’s going to save American democracy by getting everybody to vote on their phones by 2028, he said that on his podcast. He has also said, that he will do anything unethical—short of committing a crime—to get everyone voting on their phone. So, he’s hired lobbyists, he’s got public relations people, and he’s introducing bills in different states around the country to allow people to vote online: Starting with subsets of military and overseas voters for states that don’t already have it, and then to expand it to voters with disabilities, to expand it to First Responders who may be displaced, and then ultimately with the goal of getting everybody to vote online.
Despite Federal warnings
One of the most definitive scientific studies that we saw—or I shouldn’t call it a study, it was a risk assessment, that came from the Department of Homeland SecurityCISA, FBI, NIST, and EAC in 2020, which warned States: «You don’t probably want to do this, because those ballots will be high risk of compromise, manipulation, deletion, or privacy violations. Any ballots cast online via any method, even with security tools in place.»
State legislation lobbies
So even with this security, all this guidance coming from the federal agencies: Those federal agencies can’t go into the States and lobby. They put out their risk assessment, hope the states look at it. Instead, it’s left to organizations like our organization. We work with Verified Voting, with Brennan Center, with Public Citizen. These are all groups. We are very deeply committed to ensuring access for all voters. We—my organization—actually takes legal actions to ensure people’s access to the ballot. But we also want to protect that ballot and make sure that the election is secure. So that’s why we are going in and raising these security concerns in the state legislatures and trying to keep States from introducing more bills to spread online voting.
In the last year and a half, we saw bills introduced in California, Washington, Maryland, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, and Washington D.C.
That’s one aspect of the push for online voting.
2. Vendors
There’s another aspect that comes from the vendors. Because this is an industry that is not regulated at all, the systems that are being sold commercially don’t undergo any sort of public testing that anyone else can review. The vendors make claims of security or claims about the way the system operates that are unfounded, baseless. Our organization has written letters to Attorneys General, arguing that these could constitute false claims in deceptive marketing and could be actionable and asking for investigations. But there’s nothing to counter it, other than us bringing up the other side of it. So the vendors are also lobbying in state legislatures and promising State lawmakers that these systems can be secured.
And that’s another aspect of it.
Confidence in elections
So this is an ongoing problem that we’re going to continue to see, because of these two forces pushing online voting at a time when we really need to have auditable systems, transparent systems, secure systems, that we can ensure that all people can have confidence in the results of an election and not expand an system that we know is insecure.
«Theranos of voting»
Internet voting has been globally referred to as the «Theranos of voting» and I think that’s actually a very apt analogy. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the story: Theranos is the blood company that was founded that went to a billion dollars; and they were going to take a tiny pinprick of blood and be able to run a complete screen of every task that you could ever possibly need and know your entire health history. And it would be cheap and everyone would be able to do it at CVS or Walgreens.
And it was a great idea, who doesn’t want that? But the problem is: The science didn’t let you do it! You needed more blood to be able to run certain tests. The blood needed to be centrifuged, and separate out the cells, and reagents put in there. You can’t do it all, but the idea is so great, everybody wants to do it!
Yes, it would be really great if we could all vote on our phones, but the science isn’t there!
So I’m going to wrap with that and and we’re going to go to questions. Screenshot of the Q&A session. Click image to watch the session.
Q&A
Auditing?
Susan Greenhalgh (31:01): David, I was speaking about the importance of auditing elections, especially that everyone should have confidence. We don’t want to just trust elections, we want to verify elections. How can you audit an online voting system or can you audit an online voting system?
David Jefferson (31:32): You hand mark the ballot and there is no question that the ballot actually reflects the voter’s intent. That hand marked ballot becomes a contemporaneous record of the voter intent. So that if those ballots are later counted by machine—and the software in those machines is full of bugs and is full of malware, and so the counts are wrong as produced by a machine—you can always go back, in fact, you should always go back to the original hand-marked paper ballots and audit the machine results using an RLA (a risk-limiting audit), for example, as was discussed apparently yesterday.
And therefore you can determine that the machine counts were wrong and you can correct the outcome of the election.
Now, with any kind of online voting system, if you are voting from your phone or your personal computer, there is no indelible contemporaneous record of what the voter’s actual intent was. There is no record from which to audit the election.
So, it’s really not possible to audit an online election and that’s just another reason why we shouldn’t be doing it.
Digital «voter-verified paper ballots» aren’t
Susan Greenhalgh (33:16): One of the things we see the vendor say, is that «we produce a voter-verified paper ballot, our system isn’t online voting, it isn’t internet voting». Oe of the the CEOs of one of the vendors told a radio show that «We don’t use the term “internet voting”, because it’s a loaded term; we say “electronic ballot returns”.» So it’s a little bit of this smoke and mirrors.
And that they produce a voter verified paper ballot: Well, a lot of times, the digital record is sent to the elections office and then it’s printed there. But obviously that paper ballot has never been verified by the voter, because it’s the digital record that was sent. But to say, «it’s a voter verified paper ballot», is highly misleading at best, so you don’t have a voter verified paper ballot to audit the election.
Eliminating vote secrecy?
Audience Member (34:16): You folks were talking about the kind of combating requirements of a secret ballot and a technically secure ballot. I vote for Mickey Mouse every year, I don’t care who knows that. From a purely technical perspective, if you omit the requirement of secrecy, does online voting become much more viable?
Matt Blaze (34:37): Sure, all sorts of problems get easier, if you reduce the requirements. The requirement for a secret ballot doesn’t exist just because a bunch of technologists said it should. The requirement for secret ballot evolved over centuries of U.S law; and centuries of experience with fraud in democracies, based on coercing votes from people.
We could—as a society—decide to eliminate the secret ballot and maybe we decide that we want to. But I think a poor reason to eliminate the secret ballot is simply to accommodate some future voting technology, that finds it an inconvenient requirement.
I think it’s very important to understand here: These requirements didn’t come from us, these requirements are not requirements that the technologists invented. These are requirements that society has decided are important properties for voting systems. We can discuss whether those requirements are good or not, but that discussion had nothing to do with technology, it’s a democracy requirement.
Perpetual motion machines
When I hear about internet voting, I find it helpful to substitute in my head «perpetual motion machine». If we had perpetual motion machines, it would be great! It would solve our energy problems.
Everybody agrees perpetual motion machines would be terrific! Unfortunately, a bunch of killjoy physicists tell us that we’ll never be able to have them. If you believe the killjoy physicists, it would be a bad idea to create policy on the assumption that we’re about to build a perpetual motion machine, because we’re really not. And internet voting has many, many of the same properties there.
Praise for secret ballots
David Jefferson (36:42): I want to praise the secret ballot requirement: The secrecy of the ballot is the strongest defense by far we have against voter coercion, vote retaliation, and vote buying and selling. Without the secret ballot, our elections could be irredeemably corrupted by those effects.
Internet voting is racist
Audience Member (37:10): I have more of a comment that I’d love to get our moderator’s response on here. What really worries me more than anything about online voting is much more lower tech, actually, it’s that if it goes large scale it’s subject to phishing attacks. You could have very large-scale voter suppression with fake emails coming from secretaries of State, apparently, and you go and you lose your vote and maybe you get your identity theft too. Now, phishing campaigns can be just 19, 20 % effective; targeted they can be 70 % effective and who’s going to get targeted in a voter suppression campaign? The same people who always get targeted: Communities of color! So, I think this whole issue very quickly becomes a racial justice issue, honestly, and that’s that’s not even getting into the stuff you all have been talking about, that I firmly agree with.
Susan Greenhalgh (38:13): My comment is: I agree. I don’t have much more to add that was very well put!
Biometrics
Audience Member (38:21): Just a quick question regarding authentication and biometric data: So can your team speak to the benefits of that? I know that the TSA for example is using biometric data for authentication purposes for international travel; comparing your passport photo to your face while you check in. Obviously, having biometric data stored by the government maybe isn’t the best idea; you could do something like hashing or something different like that. But can you speak to the advancements of biometric data and how they pertain to online voting in the future?
Matt Blaze (39:00): There are two unfortunate properties about Biometrics. The first is they are tied to you as an individual; you can’t change them if they’re compromised. So if something happens to your biometric data and other people learn about what it is, they know it and you’re stuck. That means that effectively supervised biometric authentication—you go into the kiosk, there’s a guard, you put your fingerprint on a reader—might be okay, because they know that you’re not bringing some equipment in, to fake what the fingerprint is. But unsupervised biometric authentication—I’m using my phone, it reads my biometric, and sends that data somewhere—is something that’s always going to be subject to compromise. So Biometrics solve some problems for in-person authentication that work very poorly in the online context.
Vote by phone isn’t secret
Audience Member (40:12): I think another issue that isn’t really considered, is the fact that, for instance, if Bea is going to vote with her cell phone and she’s asleep, I can just pick up her cell phone, unlock it with her face and vote on it. Or Bob over there wants me to vote for Pinkie Pie, so he gives me a thousand dollars to go vote for Pinkie Pie. We still have that problem in our regular elections and those are small little votes. But there’s no privacy.
If you have a partner that’s very controlling and they’re trying to force you to vote for somebody: When you walk into that voting booth by yourself and you close that curtain, you can vote for whoever you want. You lose that a hundred percent when you do online voting and vote by phone or any of this. Great for American Idol, not great for elections.
Remote (postal) voting
Audience Member (41:19): I have a general question about remote voting which is not electronical, such as postal voting, which is used in many countries to support for example disabled voters or voters who are otherwise unable to go to the polling station. And postal voting has many risks of the kind that you mentioned, such as the risk of coercion or the risk of not knowing that the ballot that arrived was actually marked by a legitimate voter. So given all this, what kind of secure enough options would you recommend for remote voting?
Matt Blaze (41:50): It’s important not to confuse online voting with the general problem of remote voting. Remote voting exists everywhere in the United States at least as a special case for absentee ballots: People who can’t travel and so on. It’s generally done on paper and by mail.
That has some of the same problems as online voting, but not all of them. It leaves us with the one-on-one coercion problem, that if you’re sent a paper ballot, it is possible you could be coerced by a partner or an employer to vote in a particular way. But that has to be done on a retail level, ballot by ballot.
In an online voting system, that same type of compromise can be done centrally: A piece of malware, that’s spread by a phishing or any of the other ways that malware spreads, can be used to wholesale compromise many, many different ballots.
So, my suggestion is that to accommodate voters who can’t travel, we stick to the paper-by-mail method and not introduce methods that also add the wholesale fraud and wholesale abuse vector. But even by mail, voting does compromise some of the properties of the secret ballot; and we have to be very careful when we scale that up.
Susan Greenhalgh (43:37): I’ll just add that there have been solutions that have been implemented: When the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act was passed, it required that all Counties or States send ballots to Military and overseas voters 45 days before the election. It also stipulated, that they had to make the option available to send the blank ballot electronically. Blank ballots can be sent with reasonable acceptable security electronically, because they don’t have the vote, they don’t have the secret valued piece of data, on them; everybody knows what’s going to be on the blank ballot. So, you get your blank ballot in 45 days and then still have 45 days. The military have access to expedited free postal mail return that is provided to everyone in the military.
I mentioned there’s 32 states that currently allow electronic ballot return, 18 that do not. There are several states that don’t allow electronic ballot return, that have higher rates of participation for military and overseas voters, because they have robust communications in place: They’re making sure that they get the information to those voters. So, I don’t think that we can make a correlation that electronic ballot return is going to increase participation for those voters based on that information.
Voter outreach
Audience Member (45:03): Military ballots and voting is always kind of interesting on all the campaigns I’ve worked on. Generally, each county is autonomous and how they vote in it. You’re talking about military and state. I’m really a novice, I really don’t know what I’m doing on this one. So, you’re saying the states have better things in place. So, how does that work with the counties being autonomous and how they do their voting?
Susan Greenhalgh (45:45): It actually depends State-by-State, because some States run their UOCAVA outreach to those voters or military and overseas. The outreach of those people at the state level and some places do it at the county level; meaning that the county officials have to email the ballot or send the ballot to the people; or some places, they do it from the state level. So it really depends on the state: You have to go State by State.
Ballot marking machines vs. secrecy
Audience Member (46:20): I think it’s important for people to be careful not to generalize your personal experience of voting and think that’s how it is throughout the United States. It’s easy to make blanket statements that don’t apply. So, for instance, with respect to voting by mail: If you live in the state of Georgia, the only way to be able to do a hand-marked paper ballot is, if you vote by mail. The only way to have ballot secrecy is, if you vote by mail. Because, if we go into a precinct, we have ballot marking devices that are huge. They’re upright, they’re lit up, and anyone can see how you’re voting. So if you want ballot secrecy and hand-mark paper ballots in the state of Georgia, you have to be able to vote by mail. And the other thing to be aware of in the state of Georgia, is that the Secretary of State controls all counties. So, we’re required to do everything the same way throughout the entire State; it’s not county-by-county decisions. So I just want to caution people: Don’t generalize based on your own experience, because across the United States there are very different circumstances.
The transcript ends here, but some relevant information follows, for those wishing to dig deeper.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): Election Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, 2020-07-28. Enumeration and quantification of risks related to internet voting; also mentioned above.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): Risk Management for Electronic Ballot Delivery, Marking, and Return, undated (but before 2020-05-08). Essentially a summary of the risk assessment above, referenced in the Guardian article; scanned, labelled as “draft”.
Estonia
Märt Põder: Do voting machines dream of digital democracy?, 2023-10-17. Slides of his presentation in Zurich on the Estonian electronic voting system (including: how he might have stolen the election, but didn’t; that results differ greatly between internet and paper votes.)
James Walker: Swiss Post puts e-voting on hold after researchers uncover critical security errors, The Daily Swig, 2019-04-05. Sarah Jamie Lewis and others discovered bugs hidden deep in the hard-to-understand cryptographic core of the Scytl/Swiss Post eVoting system. (As of 2023, it is again in use in Swiss elections/votes. Many more articles not available in English.)
Patrick Seemann: eVoting: No risk, have fun?, DNIP, 2023-09-04. According to the Swiss eVoting risk assessment, the risk is now lower. Without any substantial changes to the system. A critique (in German 🇩🇪).
Technology
Homomorphic Encryption and Blockchain are mentioned here (and elsewhere), as potential solutions to Internet voting aka eVoting. If you want to understand these technologies, here are some pointers:
Marcel Waldvogel: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Blockchain, 2022-04-09. Blockchain technology explained. Here, the link to my statement about electronic voting and blockchain.
Evoting hat in der Schweiz eine bewegte Geschichte hinter sich: Nachdem sowohl der Kanton Genf als auch die Post nach ersten Versuchen ihre Software wieder
Major challenges in computer and information security are the advent of quantum computers and the need to trust your data to (cloud) service providers. New cryptography is supposed to help, but they look daunting. At their core, however, they are just children’s riddles. An introduction to Lattice cryptography and Learning With Errors.
Two big challenges are faced by information security:
Cryptographers are afraid that quantum computers may be able to break existing public-key cryptography easily, a few years from now. As public-key cryptography is at the heart of almost every information security mechanism, something needs to be done. And for secrets which should remain secret for many years or decades, we need solutions now. These solutions are called Quantum-safe or Post-Quantum cryptosystems.
Cloud computing, smart cards and the Internet of Things have a common problem: You may need to process data on platforms which are in the hands of someone else. Trust in those devices and their owners or operators is necessary, but there is no way to test whether they are violating your trust. It would be great if sensitive data would not need to be processed on these systems, if instead, they could operate on encrypted versions of the data. This is the promise behind (Fully) Homomorphic Encryption: Performing mathematical operations on the encrypted data, with the results remaining encrypted; essentially, the holy grail for trustworthy computing.
When trying to learn about Quantum-resistant cryptography or Homomorphic Encryption, the terms Lattice-based Cryptography and Learning With Errors quickly pop up. However, the descriptions I was able to found on the Internet try to discourage any normal reader from understanding it: As presented by those in the know, the math looks scary and complex; achieving magic looks trivial by comparison.
However, at their core, they are just coordinate systems and children’s riddles.
So, let me give you an intuition into how they work, explained even for those who hate math. And conclude with what that means.
You know coordinate systems from blueprints, maps, you name it. They are easy:
The coordinate axes are orthogonal to each other (and parallel to the edges of the sheet or screen)
The measurement system (or spacing) along the coordinate axes is the same (e.g., x coordinate 1 is at the same distance from the origin than y coordinate 1, just in a different direction)
The coordinate systems are linear (i.e., the distance from 0 to 1 is the same as from 3 to 4)
Left: A “normal” two-dimensional coordinate system with orthogonal, linear and proportional axes, labeled X and Y, as almost any coordinate system we will deal with in real life. Adding two vectors (arrows) of length 1 aligned to the axes, A and B, allows us to follow a series of these arrows to the destination. Right: For example, to get to the point indicated by the middle red arrow, at X coordinate 2 and Y coordinate 1, we follow twice the step indicated by arrow A (dark blue) and once the step indicated by arrow B (cyan). In math terms, the distance between the origin and the point at (2, 1) is 2*A+1*B. This all seems natural, because we are used to it and they are made to be easy on us. The lattices used for encryption will just add a few twists to them, which we will introduce.
Twisting the vectors
That was easy. You may even have wondered why we talk about that at all. So let’s look at slightly different vectors A and B: Left: Our vector A is no longer aligned to the X axis. Right: But we still can reach any integer coordinate (marked by the green dots) using an integer multiple of A and B vectors. The same point at coordinate (2, 1) can now be reached by following twice along the distance and direction of A and then following once in the reverse direction of B. In math terms, that point is at 2*A–1*B. The new coordinate system is a slight nuisance, but still easy to handle. (In fact, using a simple formula, any (x, y) coordinate pair can be easily transformed into the number of A’s and B’s to add.)
In the same spirit, let’s continue twisting the vectors further: Left: The vectors are now almost aligned. Right: We can still address our three points (and in fact, any integer coordinate pair) using a weighted sum of our two basis vectors, A and B. For example, the point at (–2, –2) can be reached by first following A once forward, the twice B backward, then again once A forward, resulting in 2*A–2*B. (The A-B-B-A order in the figure is just to keep the intermediaries inside the drawing; they can be arbitrarily reordered.) This point is easily reachable, the point at (2, 1) which we reached using three steps each in the previous examples, would now require a stunning 17 steps. With these two almost-aligned basis vectors, it becomes hard to determine the number of A and B steps to take. Some might be reminded of the complexity to move to a given location with a knight on a chess board.
Not all points are valid
In the previous section, all integer coordinates were reachable, because the vector pairs were carefully selected to enable this. Choosing vectors randomly would rarely result in this property. For example, after a slight variation of the second set of vectors above, only every second point is reachable, checkerboard-style. After doubling the length of B (left) or turning B as well (right), every other point in the coordinate systems becomes unreachable. As hard as you try, you will never get to any of the hollow points. (The right-hand image might remind you of the reachable squares of the black bishop in chess.) By choosing longer vector lengths, you will generally create even sparser lattices. (This is a general rule. Let’s gloss over how to guarantee a certain sparseness; but it involves things like the relationships between the prime factors of the vectors’ coordinates.)
More dimensions
So what happens when we make these vectors more complicated, both in their sheer number (and thus, also their number of dimensions) and their length? It becomes even harder.
Humans can easily deal with two, sometimes three dimensions. Switching to dozens or even hundreds of dimensions and having longer vectors makes it very hard to determine:
which coordinates are reachable at all,
how this coordinate can be reached, and, especially,
The latter property is known as the closest vector problem and is at the heart of Lattice-based cryptography.
Lattice-based cryptography
The closest vector problem is hard to solve for a complex set of basis vectors. However, if you have a simple set of basis vectors, as we started off in the first few examples, it becomes easy to solve. Having such a pair of complex and simple problems is at the heart of public-key cryptography.
So in essence, Lattice-based public-key cryptography works as follows:
Alice creates a set of simple basis vectors in a high-dimensional space, which does not cover all of the space (think of a checkerboard with most squares white; black ones only few and far between, with no visible pattern to their placement). This is her private key, in which the closest vector problem is easy to solve.
Alice also creates a second set of basis vectors, each vector built by weighted addition of many of her simple vectors. This is her public key, where it is still easy to create a valid point, but it is hard to determine whether a given point is valid or not (and where it is also hard to solve the closest vector problem).
Alice publishes her public key and keeps her private key private (just as with any other public-key cryptosystem).
Bob, wishing to encrypt a message to Alice, uses her public vectors to encode the message. For example, he could use the first byte of the message to multiply the first public basis vector with, the second byte for the second vector, and so on. Summing up all vectors will lead to a valid lattice point.
Bob then slightly and randomly moves that encrypted data point, such that it is off-lattice now.
He then sends that message to Alice.
Any eavesdropper will only know the public, complicated, basis vectors and will be unable to solve the closest vector problem.
However, Alice, with access to the private key, can solve the closest vector problem easily and therefore reverse-engineer (1) the actual data point and (2) what factors Bob used to multiply the basis vectors with, and thus the bytes of the message.
(In case you wonder: As is common in cryptography, these operations are all done in modular arithmetic.)
Learning with Errors
As a riddle (without errors)
A mother has two children. The girl is twice the age of the boy. Together, they have are 18 years old. How old are the children?
Simple children’s riddle, which can be solved using linear equations.
The riddle can be solved by trial and error, or using a set of linear equations, where B is the age of the boy and G is the age of the girl:
2*B – G = 0 B + G = 18
After solving this linear system for B and G, we get G=12 and B=6. Here, we learned the age of the children without errors.
Properties of linear equation systems
That was easy. In general, linear equations are easy: With enough equations, they can be solved in a well-defined, straightforward manner, even if you increase the number of variables into the millions or billions.
“Enough equations” generally means that the number of equations need to be at least equal to the variables. (Equations that can be formed by weighted addition of other equations don’t count—i.e., those that are linear dependent on others—as they do not add new information.)
More information may not necessarily be better: If a third equation, “3*B + G = 100”, were to be added, this equation would conflict with the other two, as 3*12 + 6 = 42, which obviously does not equal 100. However, each of the three pairs would have a valid solution. In this case, they would be vastly different from each other.
For cryptography (with errors)
With these conflicts, we are on the right track toward a cryptographic puzzle. The basic idea behind learning with errors is as follows:
Have a set of linear equations
Increase the number of variables to be huge (into the many thousands or even millions)
Add more valid equations, significantly beyond the number of variables. (They will automatically be linear combinations of the initial set, not adding additional information.)
And now the magic part: Slightly jiggle the constants
A riddle with turtles
A mother turtle has two children. The girl is twice the age of the boy. Together, they are 180 years old. How old are the children?
Slightly more complicated children’s riddle, which can still be solved using linear equations (or, guessing)
The ages are ten times those of the human children, but otherwise things stay the same. We also add a third equation which agrees with the other two equations. (It automatically is a linear combination of the first two. In this case, twice the first equation plus seven times the second equation equals three times the third equation.)
However, now we slightly change the right-hand sides of the equation, adding or subtracting a small number: All of the equations now still almost match the girl and boy ages of 120 and 60 years, respectively, but no pair of equations matches the exact numbers or even just the third equation. Picking any pair of equations, however, gives a good estimate of the real result. With these approximations, you can perform further calculations and, as long as we are careful, the results will be close to the correct results as well. But we will never know the exact numbers. (And rounding to the nearest multiple of ten only works in this toy example.)
Learning-with-errors based public-key cryptography
To build a public-key cryptosystem, the correct values of the variables can be used as the private key and the jiggled equations as the public key. Same as in the Lattice above, the cryptographic operations are done in modular arithmetic. The lower equation a linear combination of the equations above. In this case, the sum of 5 times the first, 3 times the second, and (–1) times the third equation.
Alice chooses a modulus and creates private and public keys; she publishes the public keys and the modulus (let’s assume it to be M=89).
For each encrypted bit that Bob wants to send to Alice, Bob creates a new, unique equation as a random, non-trivial linear combination of a subset of the equations forming the public key. (For example, the lowest equation in the image above.)
To communicate a bit with a value of zero, Bob transmits this base equation as-is (of course, modulo M, so the the 131 would turn into 131 mod 89=42).
To communicate a bit with a value of one, Bob transmits base equation modified by adding roughly half the modulus, again modulo M (half of M would be roughly 44, so 42+44=86 would be transmitted as the right-hand side of the equation).
When receiving an equation, Alice can easily compute the correct value for the right-hand side of the equation from the left-hand-side coefficients (5 and –8, in the case of the linear combination created above). The correct result here would be 120 (=5*120–8*60); modulo M that would be 31.
When the difference between the transmitted and the correct value is small (in this case, 42–31=11), the equation is decrypted into a bit valued 0; if the difference is high (close to ½M), the equation is decrypted into a bit valued 1.
Given the right parameters, this decryption is easy for Alice and impossibly hard for anyone else; exactly how we want public-key cryptography to be like.
Many current (“classical”) public-key algorithms (RSA, Diffie-Hellman, ECC, …) rely on it being hard to find the (large) prime factors of a composite number. A powerful quantum computer running Shor’s Algorithm would be able to factor these numbers quickly and thus break public-key cryptography. As data encrypted today might still need to remain safe even when powerful quantum computers will be available (at least several years from now), such data need to stop using these “classical” public-key algorithms.
The goal of homomorphic encryption is to separate the provisioning of computing power from the right to access the data in the clear: Calculations on (encrypted) data can be performed on a computer without the computer needing to decrypt and re-encrypt the data. In fact, without the computer even having the key (and thus the ability) to decrypt the data.
One of the earliest cryptosystems which allowed some simple forms of homomorphic encryption was RSA. In “textbook RSA“, (modular) multiplication can be performed on the encrypted data. For most application, this “malleability” is undesirable and needs to be actively prevented by making sure that the decryption of a homomorphically-multiplied message has an illegal format.
Lattice-based cryptosystems are much better suited for homomorphic encryption, as they can support multiple operations, not just multiplication. But the property of malleability remains, so in the encrypted state, almost any operation could be performed on the encrypted data. You still have to trust that the right operations were performed when using the decrypted result.
Learning With Errors does not currently seem usable for FHE.
Conclusion
You learnt the basics of two cryptographic primitives that will be important in the future. And you learnt two applications. So you are well prepared for the future. I hope you enjoyed the minimum math! (If you insist on these two topics being explained with just a little bit more math, read on and watch the linked videos.)
They are great and provide some additional information.
I would like to thank DALL•E 2 for the teaser image it created using the prompt “Post-Quantum Encryption without text”. Yes, it seems that “without text” was ignored, as it does not seem to understand the concept of “text” at all, and fails to recognize that it does not recognize (part of) the prompt, as image generation AI seems to be prone to do. Also, the concept of negation (“without”) seems to be hard for AI; but then again, it is hard for humans: You might remember experimenting with “do not think of a pink elephant” in your childhood. And failing to not think of a pink elephant…
🧑🏫 «eVoting: Rettung der Demokratie oder Todesstoss?»
Die Demokratie ist unter Beschuss, neuerdings auch durch Fake News, Trollfabriken und KI. «Vote éléctronique», so heisst die elektronische Abstimmung im Bundesjargon, ist angetreten, um die Demokratie zu retten. Am Mittwochabend geht Marcel Waldvogel der Frage nach, wie eVoting eigentlich funktioniert und welche Auswirkungen es auf unsere Gesellschaft haben könnte. Und wieso er glaubt, dass es trotz vieler technischer Sicherheitsmassnahmen eben doch unsicher ist.
Vortrag
VHS Stein am Rhein
Datum
Mittwoch, 29. Mai 2024
Beginn
19:30
Ort
Stein am Rhein
Saal
Jakob und Emma Windler-Saal (Bürgerasyl am Rathausplatz)
🧑🏫 «eVoting: Rettung der Demokratie oder Todesstoss?»
Die Demokratie ist unter Beschuss, neuerdings auch durch Fake News, Trollfabriken und KI. «Vote éléctronique», so heisst die elektronische Abstimmung im Bundesjargon, ist angetreten, um die Demokratie zu retten. Am Mittwochabend geht Marcel Waldvogel der Frage nach, wie eVoting eigentlich funktioniert und welche Auswirkungen es auf unsere Gesellschaft haben könnte. Und wieso er glaubt, dass es trotz vieler technischer Sicherheitsmassnahmen eben doch unsicher ist.
Vortrag
VHS Stein am Rhein
Datum
Mittwoch, 29. Mai 2024
Beginn
19:30
Ort
Stein am Rhein
Saal
Jakob und Emma Windler-Saal (Bürgerasyl am Rathausplatz)
demo.evoting.ch Öffentliche Demoversion des Post/Scytl-eVoting-Systems.
tg.evoting.ch Produktives eVoting-Portal des Kantons Thurgau.
Vote électronique, Bundeskanzlei. Dossier mit Überblick über den Stand des eVoting-Versuchs in der Schweiz und den hier fehlenden Pro-Argumenten.
E-Voting: Chronik, Kanton Zürich. Chronik von eVoting im Kanton Zürich, einem der frühen Player.
Hintergrund/Kritik
Marcel Waldvogel: Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen ohne eVoting, DNIP, 2024-05-27. Die Grafiken und Hintergründe zur Stimmbeteiligung (und viele weitere Informationen, inkl. ein Fazit).
Patrick Seemann: eVoting: No risk, have fun?, DNIP, 2023-09-04. Die Risikobeurteilung der Bundeskanzlei definiert viele Risiken einfach als eliminiert, als wirklich etwas am Risiko selbst zu ändern.
Marcel Waldvogel: DEFCON Voting Village 23 Panel, 2024-02-12. Transkription der Vorträge des DEFCON Voting Village 23 Panels, welche die Probleme von eVoting erläutern — und wieso eShopping oder eBanking und eVoting nicht in denselben Topf geworfen werden dürfen.
E-Voting, Digitale Gesellschaft. Dossier mit der Entwicklung in der Schweiz und Kritikpunkten.
Marcel Waldvogel: Tracking, nein danke!, DNIP, 2023-12-20. Gefahren und Schutzmassnahmen für den eigenen Internet-Browser.
Marcel Waldvogel: Was uns Ransomware zu Datenschutz und Datensicherheit lehrt, 2022-12-05. Einige Tipps für Individuen und KMUs, die auch gegen Cyberangriffe helfen. Sie taugen nur bedingt für Grossfirmen und exponierte Personen/Organisationen; diese brauchen spezifisches, erfahrenes Personal und auf sie zugeschnittene Lösungen.
Marcel Waldvogel: Marcel pendelt: «KI» und «Vertrauen», DNIP, 2023-12-11. Wieso Vertrauen in Organisationen (und damit KI) anders funktioniert als Vertrauen in Menschen.
Patrick Seemann: Die Sache mit dem Vertrauen, DNIP, demnächst. Computern zu vertrauen ist schwierig bis unmöglich; anhand des klassischen Papers «Reflections on Trusting Trust»).
Moderne Kryptographie
Marcel Waldvogel: Post Quantum and Homomorphic Encryption made easy, 2023-02-23. Eine allgemeinverständliche Erklärung anhand von Kinderrätseln, wie einige dieser quantensicheren Verschlüsselungsalgorithmen funktionieren.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters mit Aussagen, die nicht unwidersprochen bleiben können.
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden kennenzulernen. Und danach – viel wichtiger – was wir tun können, um uns zu schützen.
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen), Bilder (auch die peinlichen) und Kommentare (auch die blöden Sprüche) auf Facebook und Instagram, die Interaktionen mit dem KI-Chatbot «Meta… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen» gewesen sei. Und nun könne «man gratis oder für eine Gebühr von etwa 20 Dollar pro Monat jede Zeitung auf… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
Hatte mich nach wahrscheinlich mehr als einem Jahr mal wieder bei Facebook eingeloggt. Das erste, was mir entgegenkam: Offensichtlicher Spam, der mittels falscher Botschaften auf Klicks abzielte. Aber beim Versuch, einen wahrheitsgemässen Bericht über ein EuGH-Urteil gegen Facebook zu posten, wurde dieser unter dem Vorwand, ich würde Spam verbreiten, gelöscht. Was ist passiert?
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz viele Leute ganz wenig Ahnung haben, wie die Datenflüsse bei KI-Chatbots wie ChatGPT etc. eigentlich ablaufen. Deshalb habe ich für… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
Vor einigen Wochen hat Bruce Schneier einen Vortrag gehalten, bei dem er vor der der Vermischung und Fehlinterpretation des Begriffs «Vertrauen» gewarnt hat,
There was a DEFCON Voting Village panel «If I can shop online, why can’t I vote online?» which I found extremely important to read or listen to. Not just for me, in fact, for anyone talking about electronic voting. Here is a transcript for those who prefer reading (or searching for keywords).
The transcript has received minor editorial changes: Placeholders (“uh”, “you know”, …), repetitions, self-corrections, etc. have been removed in order to improve readability. Text in angle quotes («…») would be indirect speech in a written text; from the context, it is meant to be a summary/rephrashing of someone else’s statement, illustrated by a change of tone, not as a direct quote.
Chunks that are related to the organization of the panel and that are unrelated to the content have been removed for clarity.
Bold text and section headings have been added by me to help you navigate the arguments or point out what I believe are important take-home messages.
But now, let’s switch to the transcript:
Introduction
Susan Greenhalgh (00:08): I’m Susan Greenhalgh, I’m the senior advisor for election security at Free Speech For People. We are a national nonpartisan not-for-profit legal advocacy organization that works protect elections and democracy for all the people. We have a Proprogram which focuses on Election security and I’ve done a lot of work on internet voting for over 15 years studying the policies and practices and written several reports on it. I’m here to talk about this issue with our esteemed panel.
First starting with David Jefferson: Dr David Jefferson, who is a researcher from Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, retired. In 1999 to 2000, he was the co-chair of the California Secretary of State’s task force on internet voting. He’ll talk a little bit more about that. He was the one of the co-authors of the peer review that was done on the Department of Defense’s SERVE internet voting system in 2004, which ultimately resulted in the Department of Defense canceling the project. and he can talk a little bit about that. It was a 22 million dollar project that was ultimately shut down and he’s been writing, speaking, and testifying in opposition internet voting ever since. So that’s David.
Next we have Matt Blaze, professor at Georgetown University School of Computer Science and Law. He is also co-founder of the Village and he’s been working in election security for two decades and especially interested in the impact of complex software systems on security and reliability.
And Harri Hursti, also co-founder of the Defcon Voting Village. He is the OG in election security reviews, famously conducting the Hursti Hack back in the 2000s. He also was part of a team that reviewed the Estonian online voting system for security and traveled to Estonia to present the findings to people there.
So, we have an incredible panel and I will turn it over to David. Screenshot of David Jefferson’s talk. Click image to open the YouTube video at the beginning of his talk.
David Jefferson: Problem space
David Jefferson (03:12): So, first let me give you a summary up front of where I’m coming from. That which is, that it isn’t possible now or in the foreseeable future with any combination of technologies that we can envision today to secure an online voting system and so thus we shouldn’t be instituting internet voting anywhere in the U.S and we should really stop using it where it’s in use today.
National security
Voting of course is a national security issue: The legitimacy of democratic government depends on voting being secure and and open. So we really cannot open our voting systems to the to the various kinds of threats I’m about to describe to you, many of which would open our elections to manipulation by Foreign actors.
So let me talk about what internet voting is first of all. What we mean by that is any voting system in which voted ballots are transmitted over the Internet; maybe one hop of the communication is just over the internet, but if it’s if voted ballots are ever transmitted over the internet in the course of running an election, it’s an internet voting system. It doesn’t matter whether it’s by email or fax or web or mobile app: Any scheme, doesn’t matter what the protocol is, if it’s transmitted over the Internet, it’s going to be vulnerable to the kinds of threats I’m about to describe.
Attack vectors
So let’s talk about those threats. What are the threats that we’re talking about? There are many of them.
The first one is authentication related threats. When you vote online, of course you have to identify yourself, so that you can be checked that you’re registered and that you haven’t already voted. So you have to actually identify yourself. That will have to be done online also and an attacker can can mess with that system, so that it makes it too difficult for people to authenticate themselves and they get disenfranchised; or too easy for people to authenticate themselves and phony voters can vote. So authentication threats, number one.
Number two and perhaps the most insidious is client-side malware. You’re going to be voting from some device—a phone or a PC or other mobile device—and that device might be infected with malware. And that malware might have the purpose of interfering with your voting, either preventing you from voting or modifying your votes before your votes even get out of the device. Before they’re encrypted for transmission, your votes can be modified: You wouldn’t know it, the election officials wouldn’t know it. That’s a profound problem, the client malware problem.
The third problem: The third kind of attack would be network attacks; attacking routers or DNS or other parts of the internet infrastructure. Where even if your ballots are transmitted, in progress, they can still be stopped or redirected or otherwise interfered with.
There are spoofing attacks, where you’re tricked into voting to an incorrect site: A site which may look like the real site, but which is not. And and you think you voted, but you didn’t, and you don’t know whether your vote was transmitted or modified or just thrown away.
There are denial of service attacks, where the server that receives votes is overwhelmed with a lot of of fake ballots, sent to it by an attacker. It’s so overwhelmed that the service slows down. It may slow down to the point where voters get timeouts and they can’t vote at all; or the server just crashes.
There are server penetration attacks, where an attacker actually gains control remotely of the server that’s accepting the ballots and when he gains control he can do anything he wants.
Many of these attacks can be Insider-aided, but insiders would include election officials and programmers and so on. There are many variations of all of these attacks.
No strong defenses now, …
Now, there are no strong defenses to most of these attacks; there just are no strong defenses. There are ameliorations, there are ways of handling certain special cases of these attacks. But there are no general solutions with technology that we have today.
They rest on some profound problems in computer science which Matt is going to tell you about in the in the next talk. These are the same threats that we encountered 25 years ago when I was the chair of the California Secretary of State’s Internet Voting Task force and they’re why we recommended that California not Institute internet voting in 1999.
… and probably never
These threats haven’t really changed materially in the last 25 years and they may not change materially in the next 25 years; they are that intractable! Now, the problem is that all of these attacks that I mentioned can be automated and scaled up to massive scale. Depending upon technical details of the architecture of the voting system, the attacks can come from anywhere on Earth, including rival nation states or our own domestic partisans.
Attack detection/identification
Successful attacks may go completely undetected; but if they are detected, they may be completely uncorrectable without running the election over again.
The perpetrators of the attack may never be identified. But even if they are identified, they’re likely to be out of reach of U.S. law—as the 12 Russians, who are under indictment for interfering with the 2020 election are out of reach of U.S. law.
So the problems with Internet voting are profound and I’m going to now turn it over to Matt so he can talk more about that subject. Thank you! Screenshot from Matt Blaze talking. Click image to hear him talk.
Matt Blaze: IT security
Matt Blaze (09:27): So thanks, David! I just want to expand on what some of the stuff that David was talking about. He mentioned fundamental problems. And as a scientist or as an engineer, when somebody says, “that’s a theoretical problem,” we understand it to be different from when the general public uses the term “theoretical problem”.
A theoretical problem in normal life is one you don’t really have to worry about; a theoretical problem in science and engineering is the worst possible kind. Right, it’s the kind that is fundamental to the system; that it’s something that you cannot do anything about without either changing the assumptions or compromising on what the requirements are.
Fundamental, unsolvable problems
And there are two sets of fundamental problems:
The first set of fundamental problems are computer science problems and all of the problems in voting—in building a secure voting system—that we encounter from an engineering point of view, are problems that actually were around before voting was an application. People were even considering there is a fundamental theorem in computer science that essentially says, “it is impossible to compare a program with its specification and understand whether it meets it”. And this is not a problem that we simply haven’t worked hard enough to try to solve; it’s a problem that we know that we cannot solve. We will never be able to solve it! And what is the implication of that, is that general purpose complex software can never be assured to be completely correct. Now, that mostly doesn’t bother us for all sorts of applications of computing that we rely on for many things. In fact, the title of this panel «I can bank online; why can’t I vote online?» is an example of that. We rely on the same flawed computing systems for things like banking, so, why is it we’re able to get away with it? And the short answer is: We don’t. Right, bank fraud is enormously common; right, banks are robbed online all the time; there are identity theft and so on constantly.
The difference is a second set of fundamental problems which is the voting application itself has a set of incredibly stringent and in fact somewhat contradictory requirements for building a voting system. One of them is that your vote must be anonymous and it must be anonymous to the point where you can’t even voluntarily prove who you voted for. And that requirement exists to prevent people from being able to be coerced into voting a particular way or being able to sell their vote. And there’s a long history—even in the United States, prior to that requirement existing—of people having their franchise coerced away from them, because it’s possible to tell how someone voted. Banking transactions don’t have that requirement. A banking transaction is reversible. If money disappears from your bank account, it’s possible to be made whole again; but if your vote is changed, after it’s been cast, we don’t know whose it was. And you have no way as a voter of proving how your particular vote was cast in order to be able to correct that. And if that changed, you’d be able to prove how you voted.
Impossible reliability
So we have these two sets of fundamental problems clashing with each other: The first is, we don’t know how to build systems that are reliable enough to avoid problems like this; and the second is, voting requires us to build systems that avoid problems like this rather than correct them after the fact. And this combined with the fact that an online voting system requires using complex computer technology means that this is a problem that we won’t be able to solve no matter how hard we work at.
It’s not that we’re just not very smart, it’s that these problems are beyond human capacity.
Accepting the risks?
Where that leaves us is,
we have to recognize that online voting is intrinsically very risky,
that it will lead to elections that we will never be able to satisfactorily show were conducted without fraud, without hacking, and that the outcome is genuinely true.
And that will always be with us when we do it that way, unless we relax some very important requirements of voting systems.
So, by the way, I’m not the only one saying this. There was a report from the National Academy of Sciences called “Securing the Vote”, where the top experts in the field got together and produced what’s called a “consensus report”. It essentially makes a very strong statement: «This is something we do not know how to do» and recommends against it wholesale.
Conclusion
So, those who propose online voting systems are essentially proposing something that [according to] the consensus of scientists is impossible.
So, we should understand it in that context. So, thanks! Screenshot from Harri Hursti’s talk. Click image to see him talk.
Harri Hursti: False promises
Harry Hursti (15:35): So internet voting is a whack-a-mole. It keeps on coming back and the argument is very often, say, well, we have this excuse: Shall we do just a little bit of Internet vote?
There’s two reasons why that’s not a good idea:
First of all, all the votes are one pool. The idea that I can vote insecurely myself, and that wouldn’t disenfranchise other voters, is a logical fallacy. Because if there’s only one result and if I’m choosing to make my own vote insecure, I’m also making everybody else’s vote vulnerable.
But there’s even more profound reason. A lot of nations, including the United States and a lot of states in the United States, but other nations have the same principle: that all voters should be voting with same method. So, once you are enabling the door that let’s have a little bit of Internet voting, the next step is to say, now everybody has to vote with internet voting because we cannot have separate methods. The common ways we are hearing always to give an excuse: What are the special groups who need to vote over the internet?
And one of the these in America is called UOCAVA Voters, Uniformed and Overseas Voters Empowerment Act [Transcriber’s note: Merge between UOCAVA and MOVE]. So, they are mainly the boys and girls in the military and who have a problem of getting the ballots done on time; however, this same problem is everywhere else in the world. And the other part is why UOCAVA is—or military voters in general are—a very good target for saying, “let’s do internet voting,” because in a lot of nations, military voters are not guaranteed to have secret ballot; it’s a best-effort basis only. So military voters don’t enjoy the same legal protections as the general public. And that also enables you to have a little bit more relaxed voting system, because you don’t have to guarantee secret ballots.
Another group is a very powerful lobbying group: The disabled voters and especially print disabled voters, so people who cannot read, cannot write, cannot hold a pen in their hand. There are a lot of devices, calling for example ballot marking devices, which are designed to access. But the idea is: Okay, well, let’s do that at home! Again, this whole path leads to a dual language, where a constant attempt is to call the voting not “internet voting”, but instead of calling it to be “electronic return of your ballot”. It’s the same thing. But the idea is, this is the way we sell the idea without getting into the trap of informing people that this is the bad idea again, internet voting.
Estonia
Internet voting has been claimed to be successful in Estonia. I went to Estonia with the professor Alex Halderman and a couple of other folks. We took a look in the system and it was a fairly decent high school project; that was the quality of the code.
However, there was a lot of interesting things in operations. For example, they rented the servers every year separately. So, from supply chain point of view, this one agency is renting three computers: That’s your target! The lowest bidder and you can poison all you want. There were a lot of designs in that area.
For example, they publish a video where a the code is signed cryptographically, so that the voters will know, this is an honest code. And they claim that this computer, where the video was taken, has never been connected to internet. But it had a µTorrent [Transcriber’s note: A BitTorrent Internet download software] and pirated movies and pirated films and online poker on the screen. So slightly suspicious that it might have been an intern.
Finland
In Finland, we tried internet voting or online voting. It was Kiosk Voting—but a system which can be used for internet loading too—in Three Counties and it was demonstrated that three and a half percent of the votes were lost and hence the election had to be reconducted, because three and a half percent in a what you call the Jefferson counting method means that it’s absolutely certain the last candidates in the city council will be [awarded to?] the wrong people.
«Young voters!»
The common excuse also is to claim that we need internet voting to activate young voters, young people who like mobile phones.
Estonia is a brilliant country from the point of view that they published age brackets. And when you look in Estonia, you see that the fastest growing group of Voters online is over 65 and the young voters are rejecting the idea of Internet voting. The same was [experienced] in Norway, so that the actual government public data doesn’t support the common wisdom that young voters would be activated by using internet voting.
«Understandable, verifiable»
Last but not least, I want to touch a very big topic. For example, in Europe and Germany, a lot of democracies have a rule that common person has to understand how votes are counted; and have to be able to verify the vote counting process with no special tools and education. Common man’s common knowledge has to be enough. Now, we are proposing very complex ideas like homomorphic encryption, blockchain, …
The joke in US is that the average age of poll workers [gets] one year older every year, because we don’t have enough young people coming to be a poll worker. But until we live in a Star Trek universe, where teenagers are casually talking about quantum mechanics: Who is going to be explaining to a 70 year old normal person, how homomorphic encryption works?
And in this today’s world, how could anyone believe that you could ever be getting normal people to accept these complex ideas, that even most of the experts don’t know how it works?
So let’s keep it simple. Thank you! Screenshot of Susan Greenhalgh’s talk. Click to hear her talk.
Susan Greenhalgh: History
Susan Greenhalgh (20:10): After hearing all of that, I’m guessing everyone probably thinks, «who would ever want to do internet voting for public governmental elections?»; but unfortunately, right now 32 states permit some subset of voters to vote online either by email, fax, or some sort of online portal. And there’s a lot of ballots coming back online! In the 2020 election, there were over 300 000 ballots cast online; and in some states with small margins, there were a significant number of ballots cast online. And this is a problem, because those ballots we know are not secure and they can’t be audited.
Trying to create
So, I want to talk a little bit about the policy in the history of how we got here and how it’s playing out today to understand our situation. As I mentioned in the intro, back in 2004, David was part of a security study that examined a system that was being put together by the Department of Defense to a military and overseas voters to vote online.
This was something that Congress tasked them to do this. They built a system, had a peer review of the security. The peer review said, this is not secure, you cannot ensure the legitimacy of ballots cast online. So the project was scrapped.
Standards first
Congress turned around and said: Okay, we’ll have NIST—National Institute of Standards and Technology—develop standards for a secure online voting system and then we’ll have the Department of Defense build to those standards. So NIST spent the later part of the 2000s and early 2010s studying the problem, writing several reports, and they came to the conclusion—that the scientists have all come to—that there’s this broad scientific consensus that these problems are really not solvable with the security tools that we have today.
And they wrote a statement saying, we don’t know how to write security standards, because we don’t know how to do internet voting securely. It’s not yet feasible, so we we’re not doing it. So Congress said «okay» a couple years later; because Congress moved slowly between 2014 and 2015. Congress repealed the directive to the Department of Defense to build an online voting system; essentially taking the federal government out of it.
We often hear: «Why isn’t the federal government studying it?» The answer is: They already did; asked and answered. So in the subsequent years we’ve seen more reports come out; in 2018, the National Academy study came out that Matt mentioned. There’s been numerous academic studies, there’s been some states have done their own studies.
Time and again, when the computer scientists and the security experts look at the problems, they realize that voting is not something that you can apply today’s security tools to, in a sufficient way to secure it. So, we’ve never come up with anyone that says, «Here this is a secure way to do it from a scientific perspective».
Policy before Possibility
Yet, in that early 2000s period of time and even the late 90s, there was a reasonable expectation that we were going to have a secure online voting system from the Department of Defense. So States passed laws to allow electronic ballot return. By 2010, I think 29 or 30 States already had electronic ballot return laws in place. So that was before NIST came up with their statement saying, «we can’t write security standards for this», and before the bulk of the scientific research that’s so conclusive had come out by. So, in the mid 2010s, we’d seen a kind of a slowdown in the movement for online voting; but now we’re in the middle of an aggressive push once again to have people vote online and that’s coming mainly from two places:
1. Bradley Tusk
First, there’s a guy named Bradley Tusk who is an Uber multi-millionaire: Made a bunch of money for Uber and he helped change their policies. Not a tech guy, he’s a policy guy. He helped change state laws to allow Uber ride share policies around the country. He also was responsible for changing state laws to allow sports betting on the FanDuel app. So he knows what he’s doing as far as changing state laws. And he’s decided that he’s going to save American democracy by getting everybody to vote on their phones by 2028, he said that on his podcast. He has also said, that he will do anything unethical—short of committing a crime—to get everyone voting on their phone. So, he’s hired lobbyists, he’s got public relations people, and he’s introducing bills in different states around the country to allow people to vote online: Starting with subsets of military and overseas voters for states that don’t already have it, and then to expand it to voters with disabilities, to expand it to First Responders who may be displaced, and then ultimately with the goal of getting everybody to vote online.
Despite Federal warnings
One of the most definitive scientific studies that we saw—or I shouldn’t call it a study, it was a risk assessment, that came from the Department of Homeland SecurityCISA, FBI, NIST, and EAC in 2020, which warned States: «You don’t probably want to do this, because those ballots will be high risk of compromise, manipulation, deletion, or privacy violations. Any ballots cast online via any method, even with security tools in place.»
State legislation lobbies
So even with this security, all this guidance coming from the federal agencies: Those federal agencies can’t go into the States and lobby. They put out their risk assessment, hope the states look at it. Instead, it’s left to organizations like our organization. We work with Verified Voting, with Brennan Center, with Public Citizen. These are all groups. We are very deeply committed to ensuring access for all voters. We—my organization—actually takes legal actions to ensure people’s access to the ballot. But we also want to protect that ballot and make sure that the election is secure. So that’s why we are going in and raising these security concerns in the state legislatures and trying to keep States from introducing more bills to spread online voting.
In the last year and a half, we saw bills introduced in California, Washington, Maryland, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, and Washington D.C.
That’s one aspect of the push for online voting.
2. Vendors
There’s another aspect that comes from the vendors. Because this is an industry that is not regulated at all, the systems that are being sold commercially don’t undergo any sort of public testing that anyone else can review. The vendors make claims of security or claims about the way the system operates that are unfounded, baseless. Our organization has written letters to Attorneys General, arguing that these could constitute false claims in deceptive marketing and could be actionable and asking for investigations. But there’s nothing to counter it, other than us bringing up the other side of it. So the vendors are also lobbying in state legislatures and promising State lawmakers that these systems can be secured.
And that’s another aspect of it.
Confidence in elections
So this is an ongoing problem that we’re going to continue to see, because of these two forces pushing online voting at a time when we really need to have auditable systems, transparent systems, secure systems, that we can ensure that all people can have confidence in the results of an election and not expand an system that we know is insecure.
«Theranos of voting»
Internet voting has been globally referred to as the «Theranos of voting» and I think that’s actually a very apt analogy. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the story: Theranos is the blood company that was founded that went to a billion dollars; and they were going to take a tiny pinprick of blood and be able to run a complete screen of every task that you could ever possibly need and know your entire health history. And it would be cheap and everyone would be able to do it at CVS or Walgreens.
And it was a great idea, who doesn’t want that? But the problem is: The science didn’t let you do it! You needed more blood to be able to run certain tests. The blood needed to be centrifuged, and separate out the cells, and reagents put in there. You can’t do it all, but the idea is so great, everybody wants to do it!
Yes, it would be really great if we could all vote on our phones, but the science isn’t there!
So I’m going to wrap with that and and we’re going to go to questions. Screenshot of the Q&A session. Click image to watch the session.
Q&A
Auditing?
Susan Greenhalgh (31:01): David, I was speaking about the importance of auditing elections, especially that everyone should have confidence. We don’t want to just trust elections, we want to verify elections. How can you audit an online voting system or can you audit an online voting system?
David Jefferson (31:32): You hand mark the ballot and there is no question that the ballot actually reflects the voter’s intent. That hand marked ballot becomes a contemporaneous record of the voter intent. So that if those ballots are later counted by machine—and the software in those machines is full of bugs and is full of malware, and so the counts are wrong as produced by a machine—you can always go back, in fact, you should always go back to the original hand-marked paper ballots and audit the machine results using an RLA (a risk-limiting audit), for example, as was discussed apparently yesterday.
And therefore you can determine that the machine counts were wrong and you can correct the outcome of the election.
Now, with any kind of online voting system, if you are voting from your phone or your personal computer, there is no indelible contemporaneous record of what the voter’s actual intent was. There is no record from which to audit the election.
So, it’s really not possible to audit an online election and that’s just another reason why we shouldn’t be doing it.
Digital «voter-verified paper ballots» aren’t
Susan Greenhalgh (33:16): One of the things we see the vendor say, is that «we produce a voter-verified paper ballot, our system isn’t online voting, it isn’t internet voting». Oe of the the CEOs of one of the vendors told a radio show that «We don’t use the term “internet voting”, because it’s a loaded term; we say “electronic ballot returns”.» So it’s a little bit of this smoke and mirrors.
And that they produce a voter verified paper ballot: Well, a lot of times, the digital record is sent to the elections office and then it’s printed there. But obviously that paper ballot has never been verified by the voter, because it’s the digital record that was sent. But to say, «it’s a voter verified paper ballot», is highly misleading at best, so you don’t have a voter verified paper ballot to audit the election.
Eliminating vote secrecy?
Audience Member (34:16): You folks were talking about the kind of combating requirements of a secret ballot and a technically secure ballot. I vote for Mickey Mouse every year, I don’t care who knows that. From a purely technical perspective, if you omit the requirement of secrecy, does online voting become much more viable?
Matt Blaze (34:37): Sure, all sorts of problems get easier, if you reduce the requirements. The requirement for a secret ballot doesn’t exist just because a bunch of technologists said it should. The requirement for secret ballot evolved over centuries of U.S law; and centuries of experience with fraud in democracies, based on coercing votes from people.
We could—as a society—decide to eliminate the secret ballot and maybe we decide that we want to. But I think a poor reason to eliminate the secret ballot is simply to accommodate some future voting technology, that finds it an inconvenient requirement.
I think it’s very important to understand here: These requirements didn’t come from us, these requirements are not requirements that the technologists invented. These are requirements that society has decided are important properties for voting systems. We can discuss whether those requirements are good or not, but that discussion had nothing to do with technology, it’s a democracy requirement.
Perpetual motion machines
When I hear about internet voting, I find it helpful to substitute in my head «perpetual motion machine». If we had perpetual motion machines, it would be great! It would solve our energy problems.
Everybody agrees perpetual motion machines would be terrific! Unfortunately, a bunch of killjoy physicists tell us that we’ll never be able to have them. If you believe the killjoy physicists, it would be a bad idea to create policy on the assumption that we’re about to build a perpetual motion machine, because we’re really not. And internet voting has many, many of the same properties there.
Praise for secret ballots
David Jefferson (36:42): I want to praise the secret ballot requirement: The secrecy of the ballot is the strongest defense by far we have against voter coercion, vote retaliation, and vote buying and selling. Without the secret ballot, our elections could be irredeemably corrupted by those effects.
Internet voting is racist
Audience Member (37:10): I have more of a comment that I’d love to get our moderator’s response on here. What really worries me more than anything about online voting is much more lower tech, actually, it’s that if it goes large scale it’s subject to phishing attacks. You could have very large-scale voter suppression with fake emails coming from secretaries of State, apparently, and you go and you lose your vote and maybe you get your identity theft too. Now, phishing campaigns can be just 19, 20 % effective; targeted they can be 70 % effective and who’s going to get targeted in a voter suppression campaign? The same people who always get targeted: Communities of color! So, I think this whole issue very quickly becomes a racial justice issue, honestly, and that’s that’s not even getting into the stuff you all have been talking about, that I firmly agree with.
Susan Greenhalgh (38:13): My comment is: I agree. I don’t have much more to add that was very well put!
Biometrics
Audience Member (38:21): Just a quick question regarding authentication and biometric data: So can your team speak to the benefits of that? I know that the TSA for example is using biometric data for authentication purposes for international travel; comparing your passport photo to your face while you check in. Obviously, having biometric data stored by the government maybe isn’t the best idea; you could do something like hashing or something different like that. But can you speak to the advancements of biometric data and how they pertain to online voting in the future?
Matt Blaze (39:00): There are two unfortunate properties about Biometrics. The first is they are tied to you as an individual; you can’t change them if they’re compromised. So if something happens to your biometric data and other people learn about what it is, they know it and you’re stuck. That means that effectively supervised biometric authentication—you go into the kiosk, there’s a guard, you put your fingerprint on a reader—might be okay, because they know that you’re not bringing some equipment in, to fake what the fingerprint is. But unsupervised biometric authentication—I’m using my phone, it reads my biometric, and sends that data somewhere—is something that’s always going to be subject to compromise. So Biometrics solve some problems for in-person authentication that work very poorly in the online context.
Vote by phone isn’t secret
Audience Member (40:12): I think another issue that isn’t really considered, is the fact that, for instance, if Bea is going to vote with her cell phone and she’s asleep, I can just pick up her cell phone, unlock it with her face and vote on it. Or Bob over there wants me to vote for Pinkie Pie, so he gives me a thousand dollars to go vote for Pinkie Pie. We still have that problem in our regular elections and those are small little votes. But there’s no privacy.
If you have a partner that’s very controlling and they’re trying to force you to vote for somebody: When you walk into that voting booth by yourself and you close that curtain, you can vote for whoever you want. You lose that a hundred percent when you do online voting and vote by phone or any of this. Great for American Idol, not great for elections.
Remote (postal) voting
Audience Member (41:19): I have a general question about remote voting which is not electronical, such as postal voting, which is used in many countries to support for example disabled voters or voters who are otherwise unable to go to the polling station. And postal voting has many risks of the kind that you mentioned, such as the risk of coercion or the risk of not knowing that the ballot that arrived was actually marked by a legitimate voter. So given all this, what kind of secure enough options would you recommend for remote voting?
Matt Blaze (41:50): It’s important not to confuse online voting with the general problem of remote voting. Remote voting exists everywhere in the United States at least as a special case for absentee ballots: People who can’t travel and so on. It’s generally done on paper and by mail.
That has some of the same problems as online voting, but not all of them. It leaves us with the one-on-one coercion problem, that if you’re sent a paper ballot, it is possible you could be coerced by a partner or an employer to vote in a particular way. But that has to be done on a retail level, ballot by ballot.
In an online voting system, that same type of compromise can be done centrally: A piece of malware, that’s spread by a phishing or any of the other ways that malware spreads, can be used to wholesale compromise many, many different ballots.
So, my suggestion is that to accommodate voters who can’t travel, we stick to the paper-by-mail method and not introduce methods that also add the wholesale fraud and wholesale abuse vector. But even by mail, voting does compromise some of the properties of the secret ballot; and we have to be very careful when we scale that up.
Susan Greenhalgh (43:37): I’ll just add that there have been solutions that have been implemented: When the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act was passed, it required that all Counties or States send ballots to Military and overseas voters 45 days before the election. It also stipulated, that they had to make the option available to send the blank ballot electronically. Blank ballots can be sent with reasonable acceptable security electronically, because they don’t have the vote, they don’t have the secret valued piece of data, on them; everybody knows what’s going to be on the blank ballot. So, you get your blank ballot in 45 days and then still have 45 days. The military have access to expedited free postal mail return that is provided to everyone in the military.
I mentioned there’s 32 states that currently allow electronic ballot return, 18 that do not. There are several states that don’t allow electronic ballot return, that have higher rates of participation for military and overseas voters, because they have robust communications in place: They’re making sure that they get the information to those voters. So, I don’t think that we can make a correlation that electronic ballot return is going to increase participation for those voters based on that information.
Voter outreach
Audience Member (45:03): Military ballots and voting is always kind of interesting on all the campaigns I’ve worked on. Generally, each county is autonomous and how they vote in it. You’re talking about military and state. I’m really a novice, I really don’t know what I’m doing on this one. So, you’re saying the states have better things in place. So, how does that work with the counties being autonomous and how they do their voting?
Susan Greenhalgh (45:45): It actually depends State-by-State, because some States run their UOCAVA outreach to those voters or military and overseas. The outreach of those people at the state level and some places do it at the county level; meaning that the county officials have to email the ballot or send the ballot to the people; or some places, they do it from the state level. So it really depends on the state: You have to go State by State.
Ballot marking machines vs. secrecy
Audience Member (46:20): I think it’s important for people to be careful not to generalize your personal experience of voting and think that’s how it is throughout the United States. It’s easy to make blanket statements that don’t apply. So, for instance, with respect to voting by mail: If you live in the state of Georgia, the only way to be able to do a hand-marked paper ballot is, if you vote by mail. The only way to have ballot secrecy is, if you vote by mail. Because, if we go into a precinct, we have ballot marking devices that are huge. They’re upright, they’re lit up, and anyone can see how you’re voting. So if you want ballot secrecy and hand-mark paper ballots in the state of Georgia, you have to be able to vote by mail. And the other thing to be aware of in the state of Georgia, is that the Secretary of State controls all counties. So, we’re required to do everything the same way throughout the entire State; it’s not county-by-county decisions. So I just want to caution people: Don’t generalize based on your own experience, because across the United States there are very different circumstances.
The transcript ends here, but some relevant information follows, for those wishing to dig deeper.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): Election Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, 2020-07-28. Enumeration and quantification of risks related to internet voting; also mentioned above.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): Risk Management for Electronic Ballot Delivery, Marking, and Return, undated (but before 2020-05-08). Essentially a summary of the risk assessment above, referenced in the Guardian article; scanned, labelled as “draft”.
Estonia
Märt Põder: Do voting machines dream of digital democracy?, 2023-10-17. Slides of his presentation in Zurich on the Estonian electronic voting system (including: how he might have stolen the election, but didn’t; that results differ greatly between internet and paper votes.)
James Walker: Swiss Post puts e-voting on hold after researchers uncover critical security errors, The Daily Swig, 2019-04-05. Sarah Jamie Lewis and others discovered bugs hidden deep in the hard-to-understand cryptographic core of the Scytl/Swiss Post eVoting system. (As of 2023, it is again in use in Swiss elections/votes. Many more articles not available in English.)
Patrick Seemann: eVoting: No risk, have fun?, DNIP, 2023-09-04. According to the Swiss eVoting risk assessment, the risk is now lower. Without any substantial changes to the system. A critique (in German 🇩🇪).
Technology
Homomorphic Encryption and Blockchain are mentioned here (and elsewhere), as potential solutions to Internet voting aka eVoting. If you want to understand these technologies, here are some pointers:
Marcel Waldvogel: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Blockchain, 2022-04-09. Blockchain technology explained. Here, the link to my statement about electronic voting and blockchain.
Evoting hat in der Schweiz eine bewegte Geschichte hinter sich: Nachdem sowohl der Kanton Genf als auch die Post nach ersten Versuchen ihre Software wieder
Wieder streicht ein Cloudspeicher seine Segel. Was wir daraus lernen sollten.
«Saldo» meldet, dass die Swisscom die Gesundheitsplattform Evita.ch im November vom Netz. Bis dahin müssen die Patient:innen, die z.T. seit 2011 auf diese Cloudplattform vertrauten, ihre Gesundheitdossiers mit Diagnosen, Röntgenbildern und Arztberichten herunterladen. Kein einfaches Unterfangen, wie «Saldo» schreibt.
Wieder streicht ein Cloudspeicher seine Segel. Was wir daraus lernen sollten.
«Saldo» meldet, dass die Swisscom die Gesundheitsplattform Evita.ch im November vom Netz. Bis dahin müssen die Patient:innen, die z.T. seit 2011 auf diese Cloudplattform vertrauten, ihre Gesundheitdossiers mit Diagnosen, Röntgenbildern und Arztberichten herunterladen. Kein einfaches Unterfangen, wie «Saldo» schreibt.
Wer sich also nicht regelmässig um den Zustand seiner Ablage für eBooks, Röntgenbilder und alles andere kümmert, dürfte irgendwann eine Überraschung erleben. Für viele allerdings dürfte der allfällige Verlust von eBooks einfacher zu ersetzen sein als der von medizinische Daten.
Am schlimmsten dürfte es aber für Cloud-Nutzer:innen sein, wenn ihre persönlichen Daten in der Konkursmasse des Cloudanbieters landen und an den Meistbietenden verscherbelt werden, wie das in anderen Fällen schon geschah. Zum Glück ist das in der Schweiz nicht zu erwarten und auch in den USA nicht mehr so leicht wie früher; vollständig auszuschliessen ist es aber nicht.
Clouddienste schienen «fire and forget» zu sein: Man lacht sich die einmal an und dann muss man sich um nichts mehr kümmern.
Ende des Dienstes
Aber auch hier zeigt die Realität: Sobald der Anbieter kein Geld oder keine Lust mehr hat, hört der Dienst möglicherweise sehr kurzfristig zu existieren auf. Ohne zusätzliches, eigenes Backup sind die Daten dann unter Umständen für immer und unwiederbringlich verloren.
Fehler passieren überall
Zwischendurch löschen Cloudanbieter auch aus Fehlern Kundendaten. Ein Backup empfiehlt sich auch deshalb:
Eine weitere Möglichkeit ist, wenn der Cloudanbieter sich plötzlich entscheidet, dass man gegen seine Nutzungsbedingungen verstossen habe. Und das Konto dann einfach sperrt oder löscht. Gerade bei den Gratisanbietern hat man als Enduser oft gar keine Kontaktmöglichkeit und selbst wenn, die Nutzungsbedingungen sind meist so ausgestaltet, dass der Cloudanbieter alleine entscheiden darf.
So blieb auch in diesem Fall das Konto gesperrt, alle Mails, Daten, Kontakte, Termine unerreichbar. Und das, obwohl die Ermittlungsbehörden bestätigten, dass es in dem Fall um eine medizinische Nachfrage zwischen den Eltern des gemeinsamen Kindes zu einer Gesundheitsfrage ging.
IT-Sicherheit
Aber es muss nicht immer die Schuld des Anbieters sein: Vielleicht knackt jemand Ihr Passwort und löscht dann die Daten aktiv. Deshalb ist es hilfreich, wichtige Daten auch offline zu haben.
Regelmässig den Status aller Cloud-Anbieter überprüfen, bei denen man wichtige Daten hat. Da das meist zu mühsam ist und noch ein Restrisiko beinhaltet, ist Folgendes vorzuziehen:
Ein eigenes Backup aller wichtigen Daten machen, die bei Cloud-Anbietern lagern.
Am besten automatisiert man das, falls der Cloudspeicher eine Synchronisationsfunktion anbietet. (Dies ist leider bei weitem nicht überall der Fall, kann aber ein Kriterium bei der Auswahl sein, falls man eine Wahl hat.)
[Änderungen 2024-09-10: Der Artikel wurde stark erweitert]
Weitere Lektüre
Randall Munroe: Digital Data, 2016-05-20. [neu 2024-09-27] Comic, der die scheinbare Unveränderlichkeit aufbewahrter digitaler Daten aufs Korn nimmt.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters… VÜPF: Staatliche Überwachungsfantasien im Realitätscheck weiterlesen
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden… Phishing-Trend Schweizerdeutsch weiterlesen
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen),… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen»… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
Wieder streicht ein Cloudspeicher seine Segel. Was wir daraus lernen sollten. «Saldo» meldet, dass die Swisscom die Gesundheitsplattform Evita.ch im November vom Netz. Bis dahin müssen die Patient:innen, die z.T. seit 2011 auf diese Cloudplattform… Cloudspeicher sind nicht (immer) für die Ewigkeit weiterlesen
In den 1½ Wochen seit Publikation der ersten beiden Teile hat sich einiges getan. Microsoft liess es sich nicht nehmen, die Schuld am Vorfall der EU in die Schuhe zu schieben, wie das Apple mit… CrowdStrike, die Dritte weiterlesen
Ich habe die letzten Wochen viele Informationen zu CrowdStrike zusammengetragen und bei DNIP veröffentlicht. Hier ein paar Punkte, die bei DNIP nicht gepasst hätten. Einiges davon ist sinnvolles Hintergrundwissen, einiges taugt eher als Anekdote für… Unnützes Wissen zu CrowdStrike weiterlesen
Beim Pendeln hatte ich viel Zeit. Auch um Mails aus dem Spamordner zu lesen. Hier ein paar Dinge, die man daraus lernen kann. Um sich und sein Umfeld zu schützen.
Die andauernden CookieBanner nerven. Aber noch viel mehr nervt es, wenn in der Liste von „800 sorgfältig ausgewählten Werbepartnern (oder so)“ einige Schalter fix auf „diese Werbe-/Datenmarketingplattform darf immer Cookies setzen, so sehr ihr euch… Die NZZ liefert Daten an Microsoft — und Nein sagen ist nicht weiterlesen
Am Freitag standen in weiten Teilen der Welt Millionen von Windows-Rechnern still: Bancomaten, Lebensmittelgeschäfte, Flughäfen, Spitäler uvam. waren lahmgelegt. Die Schweiz blieb weitgehend nur verschont, weil sie noch schlief. Ich schaue hinter die Kulissen und… «CrowdStrike»: Ausfälle verstehen und vermeiden weiterlesen
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten.
Letzten August fand an der Hackerkonferenz DEFCON eine Veranstaltung der Election Integrity Foundation statt. Sie fasste mit einem hochkarätigen Podium wesentliche Kritikpunkte rund um eVoting zusammen.
Ich habe vor Kurzem das Buch «QualityLand» von Marc-Uwe Kling von 2017 in meinem Büchergestell gefunden. Und war erstaunt, wie akkurat es die Gegenwart erklärt. Eine Leseempfehlung.
Vor 50 Jahren erfand Ken Thompson die «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke». Vor gut 40 Jahren präsentierte er sie als Vortrag unter dem Titel «Reflections on Trusting Trust» anlässlich der Verleihung des Turing-Awards, des «Nobelpreises der Informatik». Hier… 50 Jahre «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke» weiterlesen
Eines der Argumente für eVoting ist die Erhöhung der Stimmbeteiligung. Stimmbeteiligung—nur für sich alleine gesehen—ist keine ausreichende Metrik für die Beurteilung der Funktionsfähigkeit einer Demokratie, trotzdem spielt sie eine wichtige Rolle. Die «Vote électronique», wie… Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen ohne eVoting weiterlesen
Die Demokratie ist unter Beschuss, neuerdings auch durch Fake News, Trollfabriken und KI. «Vote éléctronique», so heisst die elektronische Abstimmung im Bundesjargon, ist angetreten, um die Demokratie zu retten. Am Mittwochabend geht Marcel Waldvogel der… 🧑🏫 «eVoting: Rettung der Demokratie oder Todesstoss?» weiterlesen
Ich habe versucht, dem mutmasslich grössten Hack der Geschichte etwas auf den Grund zu gehen. Daraus ist eine spannende Spurensuche geworden, die ich gerne mit euch teilen möchte.
Aktuell laufen wieder Spamwellen durchs Land. Eine bot einen angeblichen Schweizer Bitcoin-ETF an, mit zuverlässiger Firma und offizieller Zulassung dahinter. Doch schon nach wenigen Klicks war klar: Da stimmt ganz vieles nicht.
Huch, waren das spannende Ostern, aus IT-Sicht! Es wurde die potenziell schlimmste IT-Sicherheitskatastrophe durch puren Zufall noch rechtzeitig abgewendet. Ansonsten hätte ein Angreifer Millionen von Servern weltweit im Nu unter seine Kontrolle bringen können.
Heute in 14 Jahren endet die Zeit, so wie sie noch viele Computer kennen. Vor allem Computer, die in anderen Geräten eingebaut sind (vom Backofen bis zur Heizungssteuerung) dürften davon betroffen sein.
Computer sind geprägt von Limiten: Maximale Textlängen, maximale Zahlengrössen. Nicht erstaunlich, wenn man ihre Vorfahren kennt, die Kästchenfelder und Milchbüchlein mit einer eigenen Spalte für jede Ziffer.
Korrektur: In einer ersten Version des Artikels haben wir etwas undifferenziert von Kinderpornografie geschrieben. Dank Hinweisen aus der Leserschaft (vielen
We're excited to announce the release of Fedify 1.6.1, which marks the beginning of the 1.6 series following the retraction of version 1.6.0. This release introduces significant new capabilities th...
The following statement can be seen as kind of a corollary to the above.
Blockchain is too complicated and inflexible for most applications, as it is a specialized solution to a very complex problem, which is unlikely to occur outside decentralized cryptocurrencies.
Tiny simplifications of the problem result in massively simpler solutions.
We can learn a lot from the blockchain experiments, predecessors, and alternatives; most often, you will, however, want to have a smaller, more manageable subset of blockchain functions, such as transparency (not immutability) or consistency (not consensus). A lot of this can be flexibly achieved with timestamping and is also easier to fit into existing legal frameworks.
This is the time to catch up on what you missed during the year. For some, it is meeting the family. For others, doing snowsports. For even others, it is cuddling up and reading. This is an article for the latter.
As an avid reader, you know my arguments that neither NFT nor smart contracts live up to their promises, and that the blockchain underneath is also more fragile and has a worse cost-benefit ratio than most believe. Similarly, I also claim the same for the metaverses built on top of them all. And that the… Read more: NFTs are unethical
Bureaucracy and inefficiency are frowned upon, often rightly so. But they also have their good sides: Properly applied, they ensure reliability and legal certainty. Blockchain disciples want to “improve” bureaucracy-ridden processes, but achieve the opposite. Two examples:
Yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released its indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried. It details the financial entanglements of FTX, Alameda Research and more than a hundred other companies and individuals. We have tried to disentangle these allegations somewhat for you.
Drew Austin raises an important question in Wired: How should we deal with our accumulated personal data? How can we get from randomly hoarding to selection and preservation? And why does his proposed solution of Web3 not work out? A few analytical thoughts.
Pro Senectute beider Basel, a foundation to help the elderly around Basel, launched its NFT project last week and already informed about its Metaverse commitment beforehand. According to a media release, Michael Harr, managing director of the 15-million Basel-based company, wants to use the purchase of these “properties” in a “central location” in two online… Read more: Rejuvenation for Pro Senectute through NFT and Metaverse?
Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, Web3 and NFT are the talk of the town. Almost everyone has an opinion, but hardly anyone understands the foundations or relationships. The goal of this series, whose first part you are currently reading, is to provide a structured presentation of promises, the technology behind, and the reality. Using everyday analogies such as space-faring, stamp-throwing, anarchist notaries, the concepts are explained in a trilogy in five parts.
Solutions based on blockchain have been proposed as solutions to any problem even only remotely related to IT, digitalization, economy, democracy, and society. Like for every new topic, thinkers, gold diggers, freeloaders, charlatans, and doomsday prophets show up in an colorful mixture, making it hard to keep track of things.
The goal of this series of articles is to provide sound insight both to newcomers and experts, in an easy-to read manner. The focus is — as much as this is possible in this complicated, entangled topic — to present properties and relations transparently, substantively, and in a structured manner. Guidance will be provided by illustrative and memorable, sometimes hilarious, metaphors.
The huge topic will be structured in five layers:
The blockchain proper, a way to store data transparently and immutably (this article);
cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum built on top of blockchain, which are touted to revolutionize our financial system (in an upcoming article); and
smart contracts, which — as generalizations of (conditional) cryptocurrency transactions — are hailed to simplify building and enforcing contracts (in an upcoming article). These smart contracts are used to build:
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital artworks ready to revolutionize artist payments, art trade, and copyright (in an upcoming article); and
the promise of a democratization of the Internet, dubbed Web 3.0 or Web3, also the basis for decentralized autonomous organisations (DAO; in an upcoming article).
Each of these five layers will first be presented and objectively analysed in four chapters, followed by two more chapters of personal assessment and a list of take-away questions. Due to the complexity of the matter, this separation is not always
What hopes and promises stand behind the technology and which problems they are supposed to solve.
An accessible introduction of the inner workings of the actual technology and their possibilities and limitations.
Are blockchain-based solution the only possibility to address the problem? If not, what are alternatives and substitutes?
A subjective evaluation of the technology based on the items above.
A list of questions to ask yourself or an expert, before investing (financially or technologically) into that particular layer.
Ready? Let’s wink our Electronic Thumb and put our Babel fish into our ears, and let’s go! First stop: The foundational layer, the blockchain itself.
I tried to keep this text as neutral as possible. During my research, however, I learned two things:
Blockchain advocates criticize the current economic system as being plagued by greed, inefficiency, lack of transparency, and excessive complexity. However, the goal toward which these advocates work, is a new, now digital, economy, plagued by greed, inefficiency, lack of transparency, and excessive complexity.
Whenever I asked for a tangible benefit of blockchain-based technology compared to a solution without blockchain, the answers have been evading or inconsistent.
Nevertheless, this entire field is due for more insight. The Blockchain ecosystem has raised several important questions, and addressing them is relevant for the future of our society and our interaction with technology. The «blockchain» term was able to score high in the Buzzword Charts for over a decade. That alone should be reason enough for an in-depth analysis and understanding of this phenomenon.
“Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” but if some technology is being sold as magic, it is important to ask if the technology actually can do what it claims or whether it is only capable of magic smoke-and-mirrors. (Or, to put it another way, if something seems too good to be true, it often is).
Trust increases efficiency and reduces complexity. Blockchain solutions want to do away with any form of trust. They buy this with inefficiency and complexity. (Or to put it another way: complexity is the enemy of security, transparency, efficiency and trust).
This is not a “management summary” but a “summary for non-managers” (or non-decision makers), because I think that especially decision makers should understand more about a technology that is considered revolutionary, that they can ask the right questions to distinguish dazzle from real benefit.
The blockchain was created as a solution to a very specific, particularly complex problem: Creating a digital equivalent of paper money, trying to prevent counterfeiting while attempting(!) to preserve anonymity. For this problem, it may be a good solution when applied directly. For most other processes, it is massive over-engineering, as even small changes to the preconditions lead to much more efficient solutions. But to know and understand these factors, a deeper understanding is needed. And this is exactly the goal of this text.
In the course of its creation, the text has become larger than planned. However, it has also gained in readability and comprehensibility. In other words, it was written precisely with the target audience of executives and decision-makers (and grandfathers and granddaughters) in mind: Many memorable analogies and explanatory comparisons with the real world, also suitable to liven up a business or family dinner.
I think the text deserves a chance: the advantage of text is that you can skim individual passages at any time and ruefully read it later after all, without resenting it. The often exaggerated, colorfully highlighted introductory sentences to a chapter hopefully help with these reading decisions.
This development bears the signatures of cryptoanarchy and anarcho-capitalism, i.e., of movements that want to avoid trust in organizations and structures and, in particular, distrust the state. Only programs (“code is law“) or free, i.e. unregulated, markets deserve trust. This trait runs through all levels, even though they are most visible in cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.
Promises
The only chapter blockchain enthusiasts would advise you to read.
Since blockchain and Bitcoin emerged at the same time, the term blockchain is colloquially sometimes also used (pars pro toto)for applications based on it (cryptocurrency, smart contracts, etc.) as well as the respective ecosystems. In the context of this series, I will try to clearly separate the terms.
The four to six properties that a blockchain has or should have are not uniformly defined:
A distributed ledger as a transaction list with an unchangeable past.
Cryptography to ensure the integrity of accounting and authenticity of transactions.
Distributed, failure-tolerant consensus on the content of the ledger and the validity of transactions: All blockchain participants should be able to agree on a common world view (e.g., account balances), even when not all participants are always available.
Business processes (“business logic”), which are to ensure the validity of transactions and implement them (account management, smart contracts, …). We will defer this area to the next two articles, where they have the necessary context.
This is very abstract, especially as long as it remains unclear what is the actual goal to achieve. Since this article has set out to clearly structure the complex matter and we would like to be evaluated against this goal, we need to answer one more question first: What do heck do people want to use these features for? So let’s look at a typical “10 Applications for Blockchain” list and then extract or structure the benefits listed there:
International financial transactions: Data consistency, tamper resistance, removing intermediaries→lower transaction costs and higher transaction speed.
Healthcare: Storage in a distributed network allows storage of sensitive data: Patient records, medical findings, and clinical histories. Access only by users authorized by the owner.
Identity management: ID documents can be digitally converted securely, with no data loss; more secure and faster.
Prevention of money laundering: Transparency, record keeping, and attribution.
Insurance: Smart contracts for claims processing, insurance fraud detection.
Supply Chain Management: Simpler contracts, continuous tracking of goods, transparent documentation of supply chains from origin to store. Faster/simpler/cheaper investigations.
Mobility: Access rights, documentation of ownership, automatic vehicle rental+billing, secure billing even with electric vehicles.
Energy market: Dealing with change, traceability of transactions (private energy feed-in), billing/payment at e-fueling stations.
Digital elections: No fear of manipulation, tracking every vote.
Degree certificates: Issue degrees/certificates that cannot be falsified, internationally recognized.
These topics cover a wide spectrum, from blockchain itself to cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. It would be great if this could solve so many outstanding problems of modern civilization. However, since this hasn’t happened in the last 14 years, it doesn’t seem to be that simple after all.
In the following (large) technology chapter, let’s take a look at the features and techniques used to solve these challenges before we move on to the reality check. Since we are focusing on the blockchain itself here, we will discuss the topics of data consistency/anti-tampering, data loss prevention, transparency/records and (partial) attribution/traceability/falsification at the end of this article We will look at the rest of the points in more detail in subsequent articles, after the necessary foundation stones have been laid.
Technology
The chapter in which the almost impenetrable jungle is explored and mapped. Overview of the elements of the Bitcoin blockchain. On the left, the actual chain, a concatenation of blocks. Each block (center) contains, in particular, a list of transactions (right). The technology of the lowest level alone, the blockchain, is quite complex. Before we go into depth, here is an overview, based on Bitcoin.
Currently, the Bitcoin blockchain is about 730,000 blocks long and a new one is added about every 10 minutes. Each of these blocks contains a collection of transactions. The whole thing is managed jointly (by consensus) by the computers (nodes) that build the system and where actually everyone can participate (no special authorization is needed).
To understand the interplay, let’s look at it in several small steps that together make up a table of contents for this technology chapter:
This is followed by a short summary so that you can see the forest for the trees.
Before we analyze a digital blockchain, let’s build an analogy with paper and offices. We will watch anarchic accountants (or notaries) keep a tamper-proof loose-leaf collection. Those who want (and know the Hitchhiker’s Guide background) are welcome to imagine them as members of the Golgafrinchan “B” ark.
Analogy: notary’s office
The subchapter where we build ourselves an unchanging loose-leaf collection. First stamped loose-leaf Let’s start our approach to blockchain technology with an analogy from the analog world: an anarchic mix between accounting and the notary’s office. (As junior notaries, they are initially only allowed to juggle small financial assets. In later chapters, they are then allowed to notarize contracts and transfers of tangible assets. That is why we call them “notaries” even now, although they are more into bookkeeping for the time being).
For efficiency reasons, several notaries share the work. Because of the chronic back pain that came with it, the large, heavy notarial book with the collected confirmations of the last centuries has been abolished. Instead, a loose-leaf collection (much more popular with legal staff anyway) is used. So on the first day, the responsible notary fills out the list of transactions and confirms their accuracy with her official stamp. Second loose-leaf with copy of the first The next day, the notary on duty repeats the same procedure. But so that none of the notaries can later replace the sheet from the previous day with another, his list for today includes a scaled-down copy of the yellow list from the previous day. He stamps this compilation in the evening as usual to confirm its accuracy.
On the third day, the process is repeated with a third notary. This one also stamps his list in the evening together with a scaled-down copy of the list from the previous day, on which, transitively, again a scaled-down copy of the day before last can be seen and so on. Third loose-leaf with copy of the second, on which the first is also visible Continuing this process, the notaries generate a common chain of documents in a coordinated manner. In this chain, no previous document can be exchanged without simultaneously adjusting all subsequent documents as well. And that would definitely attract attention.
But coordination of the stamping right and duty also requires trust and recognition of authority. Below we will see how we can solve the paper blockchain without this prior agreement (and thus trust in anyone), because this is also the cryptoanarchic basis for the digital blockchain.
For simplicity’s sake, our junior notaries have a set work schedule for now and enjoy their time off, so there are no conflicts over who is responsible for which day. This will change as we get closer to understanding the real blockchain.
Digital Blockchain
The subchapter where we digitize the loose-leaf collection with Lego bricks. The blockchain as stacked Lego blocks Let’s switch to the digital blockchain, such as the one used by Bitcoin. It works very similar to the loose-leaf collection above: Each block consists of a list of transactions and someone asserts the veracity of the list. This someone is generally called the “creator” here; in cryptocurrencies, they are commonly know as “miners”.
A cryptographic checksum, a so-called hash, can be calculated for each block, and the checksum of the predecessor block is then stored in the current block, analogously to the scaled-down copy of the previous day in the notary example above. This means that the new block is irrevocably bound to its predecessor block and, indirectly (or transitively), to all of its ancestors. Each block is unique (especially its end plate) For a more detailed understanding, let’s tune our stackable blocks a bit: Instead of always having the same well-known regular Lego pattern, where each block matches every other block, each block now has a unique dot pattern on top, corresponding to its unique hash. The following block must now-like a matching lock and key-have the exact matching hole pattern so that the two blocks can be stacked. The next block must have the matching holes, otherwise stacking will fail The properties of the hashes used are such that even if all the computers in the world did nothing else for billions of years, they could not find a second block that had the same hash value. The end result is that we have a perfect reduction of the previous block stored in the current block: Instead of the 1-2 megabytes that a typical predecessor block occupies, only 32 bytes, about 50,000x less, are used.
(In contrast to the paper analogy, where it is still possible to read out all details directly from the slightly reduced copy, it is impossible to read out any contents of the predecessor block from the hash alone. The actual purpose of both paper copy and hash-the unique identification of the predecessor block-is, however, perfectly satisfied in both cases).
Wanted: Notaries without duty roster
The subchapter where we liberate the notaries and finally allow them to live and work independently.
Our notaries used to have a clear duty roster: On each day, exactly one person was responsible for keeping the list. The list was created by mutual agreement or by assignment of their boss. Bitcoin is a brainchild of both crypto-anarchy and the outrage at the behavior of the central power structures in the financial crisis; accordingly, there must be no supervisor role of any kind there! No matter how useful a boss is in increasing the efficiency of coordination and creating rules, at some point a boss could abuse their power and there would be no mechanism within the system to prevent it.
In the real world, there are mechanisms for deposing abusive or corrupt superiors, but this dismissal can sometimes be lengthy and laborious. Real-world mechanisms to prevent and detect bad developments at an early stage include honesty, empathy, and trust. These evolutionary advantages lead to avoiding such situations or remedying them quickly. However, these require regular interaction and therefore do not scale to 8 billion people. And they do not fit into the crypto-anarchic world view anyway, according to which one does not want to make oneself dependent on anyone. Probably the best-known examples of self-organization are provided by schools of fish and flocks of birds. Maybe some of you even remember the exaggerated (and thus particularly catchy) depiction of the moonfish in “Finding Nemo”. (Image: adiprayogo liemena at Pexels) This leaves only agreement between the notaries as a way out, the above-mentioned consensus. However, not only do we not have a boss who makes a duty roster, we also do not have a boss who hires notaries or calls them back if one of the notaries prefers to go fishing on their scheduled work day.
That means, we need a system that has to cope with a constantly changing number of notaries, all of whom do not want to take an aptitude test beforehand and do not want to announce their presence or absence beforehand. The purest chaos. Or, somewhat nicer, a self-organizing (or, even more educated, autopoietic) system.
Human groups are much less homogeneous than schools of fish; accordingly, there are hardly any self-organizing groups with more than a dozen people. For larger groups, sooner or later structures for the division of labor therefore emerge. In standardized work processes, these structures reduce the coordination effort and thus increase efficiency. But it is precisely these structures with the associated power positions and dependencies that one wants to avoid with cryptocurrencies. This is at the expense of efficiency, as we will see next.
Organizational structure
The subchapter in which notary publics learn to communicate with each other from their home offices. A network to bind them all For our paper-based notaries to form a notary’s office, we need to have both
an organizational structure (in this subchapter) and
an incentive or punishment system (carrot and stick), i.e., a substitute for bosses and wages, which we look at in the upcoming chapter.
First, the structure: All those who want to try their best at being notaries become part of a network of equal partners, also known as a peers, for the purpose of exchanging information. In such a peer-to-peer network, (1) transactions which are to be included in the blockchain are communicated to everyone, and (2) the newly created blocks (or, in the analogy, the stamped paper slips) are stored by everyone.
This peer-to-peer system is a set of computers (“nodes”, in the figure on the right the circles with the letters) and a number of connections (channels or “edges”) between them, over which messages can be exchanged. Now, if the blue node A has a new message, it sends it to all of its neighbors, as indicated by the blue arrows; in this case, nodes B and C. If the information is new for these two and passes their validity checks, they in turn send the information on to all their other neighbors: Thus B sends the message to C and D (red arrows). A is left out, since B has received the message from there and thus knows that A already must have this information.
C in turn sends the message to its neighbors B, E, and F. On the connection between B and C, the message travels once in either direction, since at the time of sending, B and C have no way of knowing that their respective peers already know the message.
This so-called “flooding” creates a (tiny) tidal wave, sweeping through the entire system of channels, reaching all the nodes from A to G. Many of the participants receive the message multiple times, in the worst case once from each neighbor. Not very efficient, but that’s how it is when you can’t or won’t trust anyone.
Finally, this means for our notaries that they can write off any thoughts of ever having any free time again. While this is not particularly conducive to motivation, it is robust against failure (or even malice) of individual participants. Lacking central authority, there are no options for sanctions, so everyone must look out for themselves first and rely as little as possible on anyone else. From a cryptoanarchic point of view, this waste is better than trust; a pattern that accompanies us again and again throughout the entire ecosystem.
Carrot and stick
The subchapter where we motivate freelancers.
However, the above-mentioned flooding of messages through the notary network is only a tiny part of the daily grind: our notaries not only have to constantly forward all messages, but everyone also has to constantly update the transaction list, because you do not trust your colleagues to do it right. On the other hand, this also means that from now on you have no free time, because you are busy working around the clock and checking the work of your colleagues. And even this is done in a very inefficient way.
But first back to real-world day-to-day work: One way to keep a team “on track” is to create an incentive system with defined criteria and rewards. With human teams, verifying that criteria have been met is very difficult, even if it has been attempted with piecework, for example; this is know to reduce (good) intrinsic motivation to (not as powerful) mostly extrinsic motivation, known as the Overjustification effect. This is hardly sustainable, as quantity comes at the expense of quality, or team members try to make their own performance look better or belittle the performance of colleagues: Intrigue, concealment, lies, and manipulation, possibly up to sabotage. These are key elements to guarantee suspense in movies and novels, but in reality they are highly detrimental to productivity and the achievement of common goals.
In our exotic notary’s office, processes are simple, repetitive, and standardized, which is why most blockchains assume objective measurability of work performance. Thus, a monetary incentive system was created for Bitcoin, which awards a reward (in Bitcoin) based on concrete, verifiable rules for the creation of a block if this block is generally recognized. This is why this procedure is called “Proof of Work” (PoW).
So far, so simple. But how can you punish someone if they have not done their work well enough? You make the work so strenuous and tedious that no one does it voluntarily unless they can expect to be generously rewarded for it!
Thus, the incentive is based on one of the strongest motivators humans have: Greed. Greed for money and power. And this incentive also works perfectly, at least superficially. But precisely because of its now corrupting strength, greed leads to the inexhaustible human inventiveness being put to its service and loopholes being sought and found. More on this after the facts in the “reality” chapters in this and the next post.
Work and wages
The subchapter in which honest cooperation is finally rewarded.
Anyone who wants to add a new block to the Bitcoin blockchain receives a reward of currently 6¼ Bitcoin (₿) for creating (“mining”) the new block, which is currently equivalent to just under a quarter of a million Swiss Francs (or, approximately, $ or € or £). Not bad for 10 minutes of work! And no wonder greed has become the driving force. (More on finance and its role in the ecosystem in the next article).
If you want to claim that quarter of a million, what do you have to do?
Collect incoming valid transactions (more on this then in the next article on cryptocurrencies and transactions).
Include as many pending transactions as possible in the new block to be created.
Process the block until “enough work” has been done (explained next).
The creator (“miner”) of these blocks then receives the 6¼ ₿ reward as well as the transaction fees of all transactions included in this block (the collected transaction fees of a block only amount to roughly 1 % of the mining reward, as of today). Let’s hope this is you!
This so-called d100 (or “Percentile dice”) has “only” 100 faces. On average, it shows a 1 every hundredth roll. “Sufficient work” is done when a cryptographic puzzle has been solved that requires repeated, arduous trial and error. For example, any mining computer on the Bitcoin network could tirelessly roll a 120-sextillion-sided die (1 sextillion is a 1 followed by 21 zeros!) until it scores a 1. This successful dice roll is obtained on average after 120 sextillion attempts. With this result, the “Proof of Work”, the miner can claim the block and collect the reward. Our notaries incessantly drop 120 sextillion stamps from the ISS Our notaries do not play dice, of course. But they love hide-and-seek games, are very forgetful, and at the same time passionate space tourists. That’s why, when their transaction collection work is done, they hide their completed transaction list somewhere on the 510 million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface, immediately forgetting where they put it, and head off into space. From there, they throw their rubber stamps as fast as they can onto the earth’s surface until one hits the 6 cm by 7 cm stamp field of their transaction list. (510 million km² / 120 sextillion ≈ 42 cm². 42. honestly! Hopefully nobody seriously gets the idea to use the earth as a giant ball…).
Computers do not roll dice or throw stamps, since cheating would be too easy with both techniques. Therefore, when attempting to “mine” a new block, a specially designated field in this new candidate block is filled with a random content until the value of the checksum (“hash”) over the block is sufficiently small; as small as it gets only once every 120 sextillion times. This sufficiently small hash, after countless trials, is thus the proof of our work. (Incidentally, the hash of the block cannot be predicted without actually computing it, i.e., there is no shortcut).
The more computing power there is for mining, the faster this puzzle is solved. However, a design decision of the Bitcoin protocol states that a new block should be added every 10 minutes on average. To ensure that this remains the case as computing power increases or fluctuates, the definition of “enough work” must be regularly adjusted to reflect the computing power available on the network. In Bitcoin, this adjustment of the difficulty happens every two weeks.
In the dice analogy, this would mean that if there are more or faster participants in the network, the dice would also be rolled with a correspondingly larger die, and thus the dice would have to be rolled more frequently until a one appears. (In the case of our space notaries, the size of the target field for the stamps would be reduced).
This results in the following:
It depends extremely on chance who “mines” the block and “wins” the quarter of a million. To achieve more even, predictable payouts, miners gather in pools, which then divide the proceeds among themselves.
It can happen that several nodes get lucky almost simultaneously and find one of the countless (around 1 septendecillion, a 1 with 54 zeros) possible solutions to the cryptographic puzzle. Thus, several valid new blocks exist simultaneously. In general, these blocks differ by the list of transactions included in them, so they are not interchangeable. Accordingly, the system must make a choice as to which block to continue working with. Details are given below. All others who have unsuccessfully “rolled the dice” have another chance (like in the lottery) with the next block. At some point the big win must come…
While the carrot is the chance to win (like a played lottery ticket), the stick could be seen as the wanton tearing of the lottery ticket: If you have made the immense effort to mine a valid block (“rolled a one”), but the other nodes in the Bitcoin network don’t accept that block because you made a mistake (e.g., recorded an invalid transaction), then you forfeit your chance to win and are guaranteed to remain on the accrued costs (electricity costs for computer and cooling, rent, amortization, …) without even a hint of a chance to win.
As long as someone believes that his or her accumulated costs are lower than the long-term expected share of a block’s proceeds, they will try to set up additional mining capacity. I.e., computing power follows the price of bitcoin as long as no bans change the rules).
Collapse of mining rate in China (yellow) after de facto ban on cryptocurrencies (Image: CBECI). The Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (CBECI) assumes an annual electricity consumption of 125 TWh for bitcoin mining, the Digiconomist of 200 TWh. At the (for western Europe: unrealistically) low electricity price of 5 US cents per kWh assumed by CBECI, electricity alone would cost 6.25 or 10 billion USD, or 20 or 32 million dollars per day(!), and the trend is rising.
The subchapter in which we try our hand at forgery and fail gloriously. Finding a matching replacement block is “impossible” One of the important arguments in favor of a blockchain is its immutability. Thus, replacing an existing, established block in the blockchain with another at a later date is not possible without also laboriously adapting each of the subsequent blocks (remember the loose-leaf analogy). That is, we cannot simply take one of the blue-purple blocks (for example, the one labeled “OK” in the image to the right) and replace it “just like that” with the cyan block (“BAD”), which is why it is also crossed out in red. This is due to the security of the cryptographic hash function used.
What would have to happen to replace the block “just like that”?
The Bitcoin network combines a massive computing power for its proof of work, and consumes 500 times more electricity than the world’s most powerful supercomputer. And despite this phenomenal computing power, the entire Bitcoin network would have to calculate for 20 octillion years to replace one block with another so that its checksum (hash) would be the same as that of the original block, i.e. it could be accepted as a valid member of the chain. (Whether it would actually be accepted is another matter).
20 quindecillion years are written as 2 with 49 zeros. Who prefers comparisons to the age of the universe: all those computers would have had to calculate continuously since the big bang more than 13 billion years ago and still would only have completed a minuscule fraction (one dodecillionth; a dodecillion being a 1 followed 39 zeros!) of their Sisyphus work. (And even Deep Thought would probably find the answer to the “question of all questions about life, the universe and all the rest” faster than a replacement block).
People from the IT security environment cautiously call this “impracticable”; ordinary mortals, however, prefer “impossible”.
Alternative rules
The subchapter where notaries look for a less repetitive, easier job.
The proof-of-work rules inevitably lead to energy waste, which usually only increases with time or popularity. This pleases neither environmentalists nor the operators of the mining computers (“rigs”) themselves: They would rather rake in more money themselves than spend it on electricity and hardware. Accordingly, alternative systems have been and are being considered, in particular Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of History (PoH).
The goal of all these rules is to achieve security, speed, and decentralization at the same time. Unfortunately, no one has yet managed to achieve all three simultaneously in an open blockchain. Despite intensive attempts, trade-offs have always been necessary so far, a realization which is referred to as the “blockchain trilemma“.
What is Proof of Stake? The underlying assumption is that the more shares of a cryptocurrency you own, the more likely you are to care about the welfare of the cryptocurrency as such and thus would not act against the interests of the cryptocurrency. (Since this would assume an extremely homogeneous humanity, this claim certainly does not cover everyone.)
Let’s start again with an analogy, a self-organizing village. The villagers feel disturbed in their work and leisure time day and night by the hectic running around of the proof-of-work notaries. Due to their lack of sleep, the notaries have also become very anti-social; no one wants to have anything to do with them anymore. Therefore, the Council of Elders decides to switch to Proof of Stake, and thus from (proof-of-work) miners to (proof-of-stake) validators.
Here is the PoS process using the example of the validator committee responsible for March: Timeline of committee activity for Proof of Stake (PoS)
Per hectare of land ownership, its owner can request a say in the new PoS village council. Those who own less must join with others and someone represents this pool; the internal organization in the pool does not matter to the other residents.
Before January: Anyone who wants to apply for the right to a say must put their property on the line for this, so-called “staking” (and therefore also putting your land at stake). This application (and the accompanying pledge of the property) is entered in the blockchain and notarized (we will see how in a moment).
January: 128 hectares are selected each month for the month after next (here, March) from the hectares with an active stake. Their representatives will be engaged as “validators” (or confirmers) for March.
This PoS participation replaces PoW mining. It too comes with carrots and sticks: in their month of service (and only then), validators work analogously to PoW notaries. Instead of validating their honesty by willing to do useless work (endless dice rolling or stamp dropping), they do so by giving a portion of their real property as a pledge of their honesty, as seen above.
February: The committee prepares mentally for their mission (to ensure that everyone is in the same boat at the beginning of March).
March: For each day, one of the validators on duty was also selected as the “proposer”. This person maintains the loose-leaf list for that day. At the end of the day, they stamp the list, again with a small copy of the previous day’s sheet for chaining.
April: All validators review the loose-leaf collection of their month of service.
May: Our (March) validators go to the (May) validators responsible for the current month. There, they declare their support for the work submitted by their respective daily proposers by signing the current (May) loose-leaf. This process is called “attestation”. As soon as ⅔ of all March validators have attested, March is considered “justified” (or, more simply, confirmed) and the March validators receive their success reward: additional, new plot shares (the carrot, the substitute for the “mining reward” of PoW).
Additional complexity not covered above comes from the fact that Ethereum splits this work across 65 blockchains (one main or coordination chain, the “beacon chain”; and 64 transaction chains, the “shard chains”)
However, the greatest complexity in any distributed system always arises from the detection of errors and the handling of special cases. Countless rare corner cases have to be handled sensibly and it has to be ensured that everything continues to run, even if something goes wrong: Whether it is a proposer or other validator calling in sick, being overloaded, or otherwise unavailable; when there is disagreement between proposer and other validators; when someone falls asleep during the elections; and many more. In the case of Ethereum, all are implemented in an automated fashion with appropriate penalties for the wrongdoers and rewards for the rest. Even under the most unfortunate combinations of errors, the system must always be able to continue to operate in a meaningful way.
Random numbers are a special weak spot in this game. They are needed e.g. for the random, fair selection of committee members or the distribution of proposer activities among the members. In a blockchain environment, however, randomness is anything but simple, and the seemingly trivial task is implemented in Ethereum-PoS with an elaborate “smart contract” with (1) stakeholders of their own, (2) even more cryptocurrency put at stake, and (3) carrots and sticks again with credits being distributed and collected. This random number smart contract, dubbed “RANDAO“, is one of the many tiny cogs in the whole process. (A separate future article is devoted to how smart contracts work.)
As we can see, the blockchain itself can only function if countless smart contracts constantly interact tightly and correctly, like a finely tuned clockwork. In turn, however, the proper functioning of the blockchain also depends on these smart contracts. Computer scientists try to avoid such cyclical dependencies in distributed systems at all costs, since they lead to more complexity and additional single points of failure.
If a proof-of-work machine fails (crash, power failure, network problem, DoS attack, …), its chance of making a profit may be reduced, but any capital earned before remains untouched.
With Proof of Stake, on the other hand, you want to “stake” as much of your assets as possible, since the profits are distributed in proportion to the capital staked. And if the computer fails at a bad point int time, your entire staked capital is gone.
Permissioned Blockchains
In addition to public, open (“permissionless”) blockchains based on the Bitcoin model, so-called private or “permissioned” blockchains are popular for closed user groups in business applications: To join the closed user group, traditional contracts with paper and signature are concluded. The members are then each allowed to integrate one computing node into this closed system.
These computer nodes then ensure that new entries are only added to the blockchain if they receive at least a ⅔-majority of approval. The system is thus immune to Byzantine errors, i.e. the system functions correctly as long as less than ⅓ of the nodes fail or act erroneously/maliciously.
In such a controlled environment, detecting or preventing dominant players is much easier than in a model where anyone can just join or leave at any time, no questions asked. In contrast, the permissioned model also lacks the universality that a public blockchain strives for.
Further, the permissioned model is mostly used for applications other than currencies, so it is typically not self-funded. The “miners” cannot be rewarded with something inherent in the system (e.g. a Bitcoin). Instead, somebody has to pay for the cost of the system (computers, electricity). That “somebody” is typically an organization formed specifically to operate the blockchain. But then the scheme is no longer fully decentralized: a centralized authority is funding it.
Therefore, the top few blocks are considered unsafe, often until about six blocks have been stacked above them, which takes an hour on average, but can take up to 6 hours (the waiting time only depends on dice throwing luck). Then the probability is high that an additional, longer chain will not suddenly appear somewhere.
This leads to further conclusions:
If there are multiple candidate blocks in play, each participant chooses one of the candidates as the basis for the subsequent block, regardless of the decisions of all other participants. (Typically, this is the first valid block he has seen).
Candidate blocks that the majority is not “happy” with remain in irrelevant side arms of the blockchain and are therefore ignored.
The “happiness” is defined by the rules in the program code and may change over time.
A transaction that only appears in one of these sidearms will not be recognized by most members. But if the transaction is basically valid, it should be included in one of the next regular blocks and thus eventually come to recognition.
Technical summary
The subchapter which tufts everything again nicely.
Millions of computers with a power consumption of 500 supercomputers or an industrialized country are constantly trying to solve a cryptographic puzzle. The puzzle difficult increases as more or faster computers take part in it, so that on average a new block is created every 10 minutes. Solving this cryptographic puzzle (“proof of work”) is intended to confirm that one is sufficiently interested to seriously commit to the principles of the blockchain, i.e. not to cheat.
However, if enough people do not agree with the rules (or cheat together), these rules become the de facto standard (“Code is Law“). This is how changes are implemented or spin-offs or exclusions occur.
The incentive to provide these computing resources, to bear the enormous power costs of 20-30 million francs a day, and to abide by the rules is based on the freshly minted cryptocurrency (currently around a quarter of a million francs every 10 minutes) created from nothing and the transaction fees, currently a few thousand francs per block. In turn, as we will also see later, there is also a desire to make the rules so that the income or value of the cryptocurrency becomes as high as possible.
Alternatives
The chapter where we review other Creations.
From the perspective of blockchain aficionados, the world was desolate and empty before Satoshi Nakamoto separated the world into light (blockchain and Bitcoin) and dark (everything else) on the first day and then retired; perhaps to watch the price development of his first million Bitcoins with relish.
But digital archaeologists, working tirelessly, have discovered that important approaches existed even before that:
Timestamps are especially useful when you want to prove the existence of a document at a certain point in time or to show that a document has not been modified since this point in time. Application areas are diverse and range from the patenting of inventions to copyright and use in forensics.
Since 2001, there have been distributed systems for tracking the development of program source code, in which the current state references the previous state by referencing its hash (the “checksum” mentioned repeatedly above), thus making backward substitutions of previous states impossible. The source code management system Git, published in 2005 and written for the distributed development of the Linux kernel, has become the dominant form of source code management for open source projects and is also indispensable for enterprise software development. As such, Git could arguably be described as the world’s most widely used blockchain solution. In contrast to the previously described systems, each developer can grow their private chain as they wish. Consensus is reached through (human) dialog. Multiple chains are not really a problem and when a new consensus is established, the work done in a distributed manner is not lost.
Blockchain Trilemma
The subchapter in which we learn the hard way that we get everything at the same time. Not all three at once The blockchain trilemma postulates that you can achieve a maximum of two of the three following implementation attributes simultaneously: security, speed and decentralization. There is no formal proof of this; however, until now, every blockchain project has run up against this barrier in some form or other.
Accordingly, any assertion to the contrary should be taken with extreme caution. Remember: “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Can it be a little less?
The subchapter where we see once again that if we want less, we get more. Everything becomes easier if you can omit one of them (see enumeration) From the point of view of functionality, we can also form a triangle:
Reaching a global consensus (everyone sees the same state in their books, the distributed ledger),
the complete absence of any trust between the participants; and
the desire for everyone to beable to enter their own data if they only meet certain minimum requirements; they do not have to go to a coordinator to do this.
Achieving all three goals simultaneously is very costly, as we have seen. If we could omit at least one of them, the problem would be much easier to solve. Let’s therefore look at them one by one:
Do we need global consensus?
Let’s divide the consensus problem into three cases: Private blockchains among contractors, public blockchains for traceability only, and public blockchains with cryptocurrencies. Are the expensive extras really necessary? The main use of private blockchains is for business partners to assure each other of certain things. According to the nature of things, these are mostly bilateral contracts. No global consensus is required for this, only the two business partners have to agree. This is much simpler and can be implemented much more efficiently than a global consensus. The complexity of the blockchain is therefore completely unnecessary or even harmful (slower response times, unnecessary publicity, costs, …).
In the case of a public blockchain on which a currency or other elements from the subsequent articles are built, global consensus seems important at first glance, since everyone should be informed about every account balance. But even this is not mandatory, as we will see with alternative payment solutions; local consensus or consistency (which is much simpler than consensus, as it only requires the absence of contradictions, instead of perfect agreement) is often enough. But more on this in the article on cryptocurrencies.
If public blockchains are only used as information repositories, as is the case with most blockchain-based public sector digitization projects, global consensus is entirely unnecessary. Integrity, transparency, and proof that the information has not been tampered with are quite sufficient, and these attributes are much easier to achieve. If I want to show that a certificate has not been altered, a digital signature from a trusted authority is sufficient. Although immutability is regularly cited as a goal, it often is not actually desirable. Errors such as typos or vandalism should be able to be corrected, and the right to be forgotten also has to be taken into account. That is, entries should be able to be corrected or deleted, but these changes should be traceable, either only by supervisory bodies or by the general public, depending on the actual application.
(The technically most expensive and most complicated of the additional options is the protection against using a single piece of currency multiple times in parallel, aka “double spending”. We only need it if the blockchain is to keep records of things that, like money, must only be spent once. More about this in the upcoming article on cryptocurrencies).
Do we need write permissions for everyone?
In many use cases, there are only a few authorized writers; ideally, they even belong to the same organization (commercial register, land registry, …). Alternatively, they are known to be responsible for only part of the data (hierarchy, federalism, …). I.e. even if consensus is necessary, it is clear who may contribute what to this consensus. Again, this leads to much simpler solutions.
Would you like a sprinkle of trust with this?
The huge effort that goes into proof-of-whatever and fully automated consensus is eliminated if there is at least a modicum of trust and external mechanisms (press, courts, …) can be used if this trust is abused.
Reality
The chapter where we revisit the original promises.
Let’s look again at the promises for which blockchain is being sold as a panacea.
A remark in advance: As the topics in the promises are only stated in very general terms, no detailed analysis can be made. Nevertheless, I have tried to make this more specific by adding my personal expectations from such a system as requirements.
The topics were analyzed according to eight criteria:
Whether they need integrity, traceability, immutability, or protection against double spending
Do we need something global or multilateral, or are much simpler bilateral agreements enough? (“More than two organizations”)
Is multilateral/global consensus necessary? (Consensus between two organisations is much easier; this alos applies if only consistency is required)
Whether this is a technical (or technically solvable) problem at all, or whether we are rather dealing with a Layer 8 problem here, i.e. the human desire to be involved in decision-making or to be allowed to go one’s own way.
Last but not least: Do I think the complete, globally uniform digitization of the respective process is a good idea at all (either in general or specifically by means of a blockchain).
The purely financial topics “financial transactions” and “money laundering” can be found in this table; nevertheless, they will be dealt with in the next article.
Topic
Integrity
Traceability
Immutability
>2 Orgs
Consensus
Double Spending
Layer 8
Idea
Financial transactions
✅
✅
✅
(✅)
(✅)
✅
(✅)
✅
Health care
✅
✅
•
✅
•
•
✅
😨
Identity management
✅
✅
•
•
•
•
✅
❓
Money laundering
✅
✅
•
•
•
•
✅
❓
Insurances
✅
✅
✅
(✅)
•
•
✅
❓
Supply Chain
✅
✅
•
(✅)
•
•
✅
✅
Mobility
✅
•
•
•
•
•
✅
❓
Energy markets
✅
✅
✅
•
•
•
✅
✅
Digital elections
✅
(❌)
✅
•
•
•
•
😨
Digital certificates
✅
•
•
(✅)
•
•
✅
❓
Let’s take a look at a few hot topics as examples:
Digital elections
The subchapter where we shudder again more about the idea of digitizing elections.
e-Voting was a hotly debated topic in Switzerland a few years ago, so here are just a few key points. Trust is essential when it comes to voting:
Therefore, we want integrity and immutability, but traceability on a large scale is already dangerous.
We do have a strict organization with hierarchy (federal, cantonal, municipal level) and not a horde of mutually distrusting individuals; thus, global consensus is ensured simply by passing the results to the next higher level of hierarchy (and verifying that they are included in the result).
This means that electronic voting may seem sensible, but it carries high risks of electoral fraud or (even worse) a loss of trust, and it offers hardly any time advantage (at least in Switzerland, the results are usually known a few hours after the polls close). Despite the intense discussion, no one has yet even begun to show how a blockchain could help there (beyond hand-waving general claims). On the contrary, I could well imagine that such systems would be the wet dream of any totalitarian regime.
Accordingly, I see no reason to think electronic blockchain voting is anything but a horrible idea.
Degree Certificates
The subchapter where only failing grades are given.
Third, this also raises the question of what blockchains would contribute to Degree Certificates:
In any school, several people are naturally involved in feeding data to the the certificate process and thus having the possibility to issue incorrect certificates directly or indirectly. False or bogus certificates introduced into the trusted process in this way would be indistinguishable from correct certificates, be it on a blockchain or not.
Consensus between schools is not necessary. Each may issue certificates for its graduates independently.
Even the decentralization of Blockchain is undermined: the verification of document authenticity only worked via the central gateway of the Bundesdruckerei.
The reason for the lack of universal acceptance of digital Degree Certificates is the lack of widespread recognition of a uniform procedure, not the complexity of its technical implementation. i.e., it is a typical Layer-8 problem.
Furthermore, essential basics of secure design of (not only web) applications were violated when implementing the application, throwing generally accepted design criteria such as use of few, simple tools, don’t trust any user input, … in the wind. These things should be considered and built in from the beginning, not only if you want to build a particularly trustworthy application.
None of the 16 blockchains is reliably expected to continue to function and be secure in the future, i.e., to be able to play its primary role as a persistent, trustworthy storage.
Too many special interests were represented in the consortium: Everyone wanted to push “their” blockchain.
Neither speaks to confidence in blockchains and their proponents.
(Incidentally, this project also provides another frightening example of how technical implementations often completely ignore the needs of an important user group. The students, for example, who should certainly be important beneficiaries of this technology, were expecting the project to culminate in something entirely different: timely feedback if their performance is unsatisfactory and what they can do about it. This has nothing whatsoever to do with digital signatures on diplomas.)
Supply chain 1: Provenance/origin
The subchapter in which we repeat ourselves again. On purpose.
Whether the certificates or the products (or both) are replaced on the delivery route cannot be checked digitally (the Oracle Problem again).
Once again, no technical features are required that extend beyond simple bookkeeping or digital signatures.
In both cases, the blockchain is not the solution, only trust (and control) can help. Yes, this requires human contact and the odd on-site visit; but anything else is nothing more than an open invitation to fraud. Deal with it.
Supply Chain 2: Contracting
The subchapter where only standard processes help.
The second promise around supply chains is easier and faster formation of contracts. A contract is only really important when the contracting parties disagree. Then it must be watertight, with clear rules on when the contractual obligations are deemed to have been provided and what dispute resolution mechanisms are accepted. As long as all is sunshine and roses, a rough definition of the respective duties is more than sufficient.
A contract in a blockchain (and even more so, as we will see, a smart contract) must also be suitable for those bad conditions. A real speed advantage only arises if one can rely on the cooperation of the counterparty (common interest, trust, small risk, …) or can reuse elements from standardized contracts.
Evaluation
The chapter in which we look back disillusioned.
Here is a brief summary of the preceding pages: Misapplied security mechanisms, including blockchain, are a daunting obstacle for the good guys, but no protection against the bad guys. (Image source unknown)
Blockchains are attributed all sorts of properties, but these are rarely justified in concrete terms. On the contrary, it seems as if there are no reasons at all to reduce cloudiness in requirements, complexity in systems, or lack of structure in explanations.
Whenever you implement a process, you should know in advance which technical features you really need. Clarity about your goals and essential requirements simplifies the implementation and reduces the resource consumption of the resulting solution; often massively.
The technology itself is almost trivial; but by assuming complex distributed dependencies and refusing to include even an inkling of trust, complex and inefficient solutions result.
The electricity costs for each of the major blockchains are at least on the order 20 million francs per day, and rising. Direct refinancing is not possible and can only be based on hope (and that in a system that absolutely tries to condemn trust!).
By building up (sometimes exorbitant) financial incentives, human greed is excessively activated and other virtues fall into disuse.
Alternative approaches (such as proof of stake) rely too much on additional complexity, the side effects of which are hardly foreseeable. Among other things, it seems possible that targeted network attacks on proof-of-stake participants could prove very lucrative financially for the attacker.
For many applications targeted by blockchain claims, a combination of audit logs, digital signatures, and time stamps are sufficient. They are also easier to implement and cheaper in almost all aspects.
If an application is to be secure, this must include all processes and participants, especially the users. Complexity and intransparency often lead to countermeasures by the users, which in turn can endanger the entire system.
The ill-considered use of security mechanisms (not only blockchains) only leads to all honest participants being constantly demotivated in their daily work by seemingly pointless obstacles, while bad guys hardly have any additional effort or, on the contrary, even have it easier. And that should never be the purpose of digitization.
Hardly any technology that is sold as magic is as easy to use as magic. On the contrary, the lack of understanding caused by magic might hold even greater hidden dangers, a familiar theme in fairy tales.
Digitization cannot be solved simply by using technology (magical or not). The processes and people involved in a process are at least as important.
Often, a pinch of trust simplifies the solution massively. But all parties involved have to earn it.
The blockchain was created as a solution to a very specific, particularly complex problem: digital currency trying to mimic paper money, that is, anonymous yet hard-to-forge digital objects. For this problem, it may be a good solution when applied directly. For all other processes, it is massive over-engineering and even small simplifications to the assumptions can lead to much more efficient solutions. This is also illustrated by the (inherently simplifying) diagram on the right.
For every possible digitization approach, dozens of proposals exist for the use of blockchains. However, despite millions of dollars of investment in more than a decade, there is a lack of widely publicized recipes for success that leverage the specific properties of blockchains. Several aspects and considerations behind the concept of blockchain are inspiring and promising, but these inspirations have not yet been successfully implemented. Perhaps this is because blockchain really does not add value outside of the cryptocurrency environment; or perhaps it is because there has been a lack of understanding of how it works. I hope to have contributed something to this understanding and would be happy to hear about successful (but also unsuccessful) digitization projects.
Questions
The chapter to go.
Here are some questions that help to structure the digitization of a data-centric business process. If this process is to be specifically digitized by means of blockchain, consensus on the answers between all parties involved (“stakeholders“) is a must before starting the discussion “Blockchain? If yes, how?” should be started. I hope these questions support as many projects as possible in dealing with their data more clearly!
— — — — ✀ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Data lifecycle questionnaire
Data: Which data with which properties (structure, dependencies, data protection) are we talking about exactly?
Structure: What are the format, structure and dependencies of the data?
Criteria: Are integrity, traceability, immutability, confidentiality, or global consensus necessary?
Input: What are the data sources? How does the data get into the system?
Quality: How is the quality (correctness, uniformity, authenticity, completeness, …) of the incoming data ensured?
Error culture: What can/should/must happen if erroneous data (intentionally or unintentionally) creeps in?
Format changes: How should future changes to the structure or format of data be handled?
Data protection: How should the right to correction or deletion of personal data be implemented?
Processing: What processing steps should be performed on this data?
Trust: Is lasting mistrust between the actors to be expected? Can this mistrust be managed through hierarchies or (work) contracts?
Thomas Schwendener: Blockchain Report, Inside IT. 5-part series, published between February 8 and 24, 2022. Information on the state of blockchain and blockchain projects in Switzerland (German).
Stephen Diehl et al: Making Sense of Crypto & Web3, Life Itself Labs, 2022. Encyclopedia with explanations and podcasts on blockchain.
David S. Rosenthal: EE380 Talk, February 9, 2022. Transcript (and video) of his Stanford University talk on the blockchain ecosystem (English).
Petr Hudeček and Michal Pokorný: The Deadlock Empire, 2016-2021. A game for budding computer scientists where you experience trace amounts of PoS complexity firsthand and have to make sure that multiple pieces of code running simultaneously do not interfere with each other.
Hardly a day goes by without someone demanding that I listen to their explanation of their blockchain idea. A lot of times, I listen. Look, a lot of people I consider to be smart and thoughtful are…
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber nur ganz wenige Leute verstehen, was dahinter steckt und was das Buzzword bedeutet. Ändern wir das!
Ich habe mich deshalb einmal hingesetzt und eine allgemeinverständliche Erklärung geschrieben (auch bzw. gerade) für Entscheidungsträger mit vielen verständlichen Analogien, wie:
📄 Loseblattsammlungen,
🎲 vielseitigen Würfeln,
🌊 Wasserkanälen und
🏘️ post-demokratischen Dörfern.
(Und nach den lustigen Geschichten auch mit faktenbasierten, nachvollziehbaren Erläuterungen, was die Computer und wir Menschen denn daraus machen. Und was wir machen sollten.)
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber nur ganz wenige Leute verstehen, was dahinter steckt und was das Buzzword bedeutet. Ändern wir das!
Ich habe mich deshalb einmal hingesetzt und eine allgemeinverständliche Erklärung geschrieben (auch bzw. gerade) für Entscheidungsträger mit vielen verständlichen Analogien, wie:
📄 Loseblattsammlungen,
🎲 vielseitigen Würfeln,
🌊 Wasserkanälen und
🏘️ post-demokratischen Dörfern.
(Und nach den lustigen Geschichten auch mit faktenbasierten, nachvollziehbaren Erläuterungen, was die Computer und wir Menschen denn daraus machen. Und was wir machen sollten.)
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Ihren NFT-Selbstversuch schliesst Susanna Petrin mit einer Vision des Lebens nach der Zerstörung unserer Welt: Im Metaversum unsere NFTs bewundernd. Ich… NFT: Gefahr statt Chance weiterlesen
Oftmals hört man Behauptungen über Anwendungszwecke von Blockchain ohne tiefere Überlegungen. Hier ist ein kompaktes, zitierbares Destillat aus «Per Anhalter durch… Blockchain in aller Kürze weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber… Per Anhalter durch die Blockchain weiterlesen
In Deutschland ist soeben ein Projekt zur Blockchainisierung der Schulzeugnisse nach über einer Million € ergebnislos eingestampft worden. Was können wir… Sollen Zeugnisse in die Blockchain? weiterlesen
Blockchain, Kryptowährungen, Smart Contracts, Web3 und NFTs sind zur Zeit in aller Munde. Fast jeder hat dazu eine Meinung, aber kaum jemand versteht die
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit und Rechtssicherheit.
Blockchain-Jünger wollen diese Prozesse «verbessern,» erreichen aber das Gegenteil. Zwei Beispiele:
Ein Hauskauf ist schwierig, langwierig und mit Gebühren gespickt. Hier wahrscheinlich ein viel zu stark vereinfachter Ablauf:
Haus suchen
Haus evaluieren (besichtigen etc.)
Haus schätzen (lassen)
Bank aufsuchen
Hypothek aushandeln
Verkaufspreis und -konditionen aushandeln
Notariatstermin finden
Bankbestätigung organisieren
Vertrag zum Notar schicken
Physisch alle gleichzeitig zum Notariat anreisen
Den Vertrag nochmals vorgelesen bekommen
Händisch mehrfach alles unterschreiben
Schlüssel übergeben
Mängel überprüfen
Und an drölfzig Stellen unverständlich hohe Gebühren bezahlen
Kein Wunder, dass viele diesen Vorgang vereinfachen wollen.
Wunschtraum
Wie einfach wäre es doch, wenn das alles per Mausklick funktionieren könnte! Alle Grundstücke wären—wie im Metaverse—als NFT auf der Blockchain gespeichert und würden mittels eines Smart Contracts gehandelt.
Utopie
Die meisten dieser bürokratischen und teuren Vorgänge würden wegfallen, es würde viel Zeit und Geld gespart und der Staat könnte viel schlanker gemacht werden. Wir wären alle glücklicher und würden uns im Wohlstand suhlen.
Realität
Wer sich etwas mit IT-Sicherheit beschäftigt, der weiss, dass:
Ihnen schickt jemand einen Link, auf den Sie «unbedingt» klicken sollen, weil sonst etwas ganz schlimmes geschieht oder ihnen etwas ganz gutes entgeht.
«Elli from Windows» (reales Beispiel von letzter Woche) ruft Ihnen mit indischem Akzent an und will Ihnen angeblich beim Lösen eines Sicherheitsproblems ihres Computers «helfen».
Ihr Rechner mit den Zugangsdaten zu Ihrer Blockchain geht kaputt, verloren oder wird geklaut.
Im schlimmsten Fall sind Sie in der effizienten «schönen neuen Blockchain-Welt» mit einem einzigen falschen Klick ihr Zuhause los. Und am nächsten Tag kommt die Polizei und nimmt Ihre gesamte Familie als Hausbesetzer fest. Der Effizienzgewinn wird für die Verbrecher höher sein als für die normalen Nutzer.
(In der Aufzählung könnte auch ein Programmfehler, ein Tippfehler, ein Irrtum oder eine Unzahl weiterer Möglichkeiten auftauchen.)
Es kann also auch Vorteile haben, persönlich erscheinen zu müssen, sich nochmals bewusst zu werden, was eigentlich passiert und vielleicht jemanden dabei zu haben, der Sie warnt, wenn möglicherweise etwas schief geht. Alle Parteien sind sich danach einig, dass alle anderen sich der Tragweite der Transaktion bewusst waren. Eine ganz wichtige Grundlage für das Vertrauen, das eine funktionierende Gesellschaft benötigt.
Immobilien ohne Rechtsstaat
Ein weiteres häufig gehörtes Argument von Blockchain-Verfechtern: «Ja, das funktioniert, weil wir hier privilegiert sind und Korruption selten vorkommt. Aber stell dir jetzt vor, du wärst in einem Land ohne funktionierenden Rechtsstaat. Banking the unbanked!»
Ja, in gewissen Ländern mag es durchaus vorkommen, dass man mit Anreizen oder Drohungen den Grundbuchamtschef dazu «überreden» kann, kurz und unauffällig den Eigentümer eines Grundstücks zu ändern. Für das Opfer bedeutet das oft einen harten oder aussichtslosen Kampf, um wieder zu seinem Recht zu kommen.
In einem korrupten Land wechsle ich vom korrupten offiziellen Grundbuchamt zu einem Blockchain-basierten Grundbuch. Wie kann ich aber (a) zeigen, dass ich vorher wirklich der Besitzer war? (b) dass die Übertragung in die Blockchain korrekt ist? Und (c) dass niemand mehr das alte System nutzt? Aber vor allem, was mache ich in einem Land ohne stabiles Rechtssystem, wenn (c) mich jemand mit Gewalt aus meinem Haus wirft?
Wir sehen auch hier, dass die Blockchain kein Problem löst. Im Gegensatz zu vorhin schafft sie zumindest nicht automatisch gleichzeitig unzählige neue Probleme.
Für rein digitale Assets mag eine Blockchain-basierte Buchführung alleine relevant sein. Aber sobald davon auch reale Werte und reale Personen betroffen sind, sind Vertrauen und ein stabiles Rechtssystem unerlässlich. Da ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Sorgen wir also dafür, dass in möglichst vielen Gegenden dieser Erde ein vertrauenswürdiges und breit abgestütztes Rechtssystem existiert. Ohne das läuft nichts, weder mit noch ohne Blockchain. Und wenn wir das haben, dann ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Blockchain ist eine verteilte Datenbank, an welche nur angehängt werden kann, und bei der eine unbestimmte Gruppe sich gegenseitig misstrauender Akteure jeden Eintrag ändern können muss.
Als eine Art Resultat aus dem obigen Zitat ergibt sich folgende Aussage:
Die Blockchain ist zu kompliziert und inflexibel für die meisten Anwendungen, da sie eine spezialisierte Lösung auf ein sehr komplexes Problem ist, welches ausserhalb verteilter Kryptowährungen kaum anzutreffen sein wird.
Bereits kleine Vereinfachungen an der Problemstellung resultieren in viel einfacheren Lösungen.
Wir können viel aus den Blockchain-Experimenten sowie ihren Vorläufern und Alternativen lernen. Meistens will man jedoch nur eine deutliche kleinere Funktionalität, die damit viel handlicher und verständlicher wird: Zum Beispiel Transparenz (statt Unveränderbarkeit) oder Konsistenz (statt Konsens). Viel davon kann flexibel mittels Zeitstempeln erreicht werden und dürfte erst noch meist gesetzeskompatibler sein.
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Ihren NFT-Selbstversuch schliesst Susanna Petrin mit einer Vision des Lebens nach der Zerstörung unserer Welt: Im Metaversum unsere NFTs bewundernd. Ich… NFT: Gefahr statt Chance weiterlesen
Oftmals hört man Behauptungen über Anwendungszwecke von Blockchain ohne tiefere Überlegungen. Hier ist ein kompaktes, zitierbares Destillat aus «Per Anhalter durch… Blockchain in aller Kürze weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber… Per Anhalter durch die Blockchain weiterlesen
In Deutschland ist soeben ein Projekt zur Blockchainisierung der Schulzeugnisse nach über einer Million € ergebnislos eingestampft worden. Was können wir… Sollen Zeugnisse in die Blockchain? weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber nur ganz wenige Leute verstehen, was dahinter steckt und was das Buzzword bedeutet. Ändern wir das!
Ich habe mich deshalb einmal hingesetzt und eine allgemeinverständliche Erklärung geschrieben (auch bzw. gerade) für Entscheidungsträger mit vielen verständlichen Analogien, wie:
📄 Loseblattsammlungen,
🎲 vielseitigen Würfeln,
🌊 Wasserkanälen und
🏘️ post-demokratischen Dörfern.
(Und nach den lustigen Geschichten auch mit faktenbasierten, nachvollziehbaren Erläuterungen, was die Computer und wir Menschen denn daraus machen. Und was wir machen sollten.)
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Ihren NFT-Selbstversuch schliesst Susanna Petrin mit einer Vision des Lebens nach der Zerstörung unserer Welt: Im Metaversum unsere NFTs bewundernd. Ich… NFT: Gefahr statt Chance weiterlesen
Oftmals hört man Behauptungen über Anwendungszwecke von Blockchain ohne tiefere Überlegungen. Hier ist ein kompaktes, zitierbares Destillat aus «Per Anhalter durch… Blockchain in aller Kürze weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber… Per Anhalter durch die Blockchain weiterlesen
In Deutschland ist soeben ein Projekt zur Blockchainisierung der Schulzeugnisse nach über einer Million € ergebnislos eingestampft worden. Was können wir… Sollen Zeugnisse in die Blockchain? weiterlesen
Blockchain, Kryptowährungen, Smart Contracts, Web3 und NFTs sind zur Zeit in aller Munde. Fast jeder hat dazu eine Meinung, aber kaum jemand versteht die
Der Blockchain und den darauf aufbauenden Kryptowährungen, Smart Contracts und NFTs werden fast schon mystische Eigenschaften zugeschrieben. Ein TL;DR, das in aller Kürze einige Missverständnisse ausräumt.
Der Blockchain und den darauf aufbauenden Kryptowährungen, Smart Contracts und NFTs werden fast schon mystische Eigenschaften zugeschrieben. Ein TL;DR, das in aller Kürze einige Missverständnisse ausräumt.
Eine Blockchain ist eine Liste von Datenblöcken, bei der eine (möglicherweise offene) Gruppe von Berechtigten neue Datenblöcke vorschlagen kann, welche dann im Konsens hinzugefügt werden. Das Versprechen ist, dass die neuen Blöcke Regeln befolgen und für alle Berechtigten immer und ewig unabänderlich lesbar sind.
Um die dafür notwendige Komplexität und Inflexibilität zu erreichen wird viel Aufwand getrieben.
Leider geht dabei die Realität um das nackte IT-System herum vergessen: Regeln müssen sich ändern, aber wie? Was passiert bei Uneinigkeit, fehlerhaften oder unberechtigterweise veröffentlichten Daten? Wie beweise ich der Blockchain, dass die Daten korrekt sind? Oder falls die Betreiber irgendwann keine Lust mehr haben, den zur Sicherstellung der Eigenschaften notwendigen Aufwand in genügender Diversität zu betreiben?
Bei der Digitalisierung von Prozessen ist nicht ewige Unveränderbarkeit oder inhaltlicher Konsens wichtig, sondern Flexibilität zusammen mit Nachvollziehbarkeit und Verantwortungsübernahme. Dafür reichen meist Digitale Signaturen und Zeitstempel.
Bei vielen unserer realweltlichen Systeme können wir Probleme identifizieren: Das Finanzsystem, das politische System, die Machtverteilung, wie wir Verträge handhaben, wie wir Künstler entschädigen usw. usf. Ja, daran sollten wir etwas ändern.
Es ist einfach zu behaupten, dass ein technisches System auf einer völlig neuen Basis alle Probleme löse. Aber einfach nur etwas anders zu machen heisst nicht automatisch, dass es besser sei. Schon gar nicht in allen Fällen.
Wenn man das zeigen will, braucht man einen Überblick über die Vor- und Nachteile der alten und der neuen Lösungen. Und muss sich der eigentlichen Ziele und der „real-world“-Eigenschaften und -Herausforderungen annehmen.
Wenn die Ursache dahinter gesellschaftlicher Natur ist: Gesellschaftliche Probleme lassen sich nicht (alleine) durch Technologie lösen, so schön das auch wäre! Bei solchen Veränderungen müssen wir alle uns beteiligen. Und vielleicht ist Technologie dann ein Puzzlestück in der Lösung.
Ja, aber … Digitalisierung!
Vertrauenswürdige Digitalisierung geht auch ohne Blockchain. Den Unterschied zwischen schlechter und guter Digitalisierung liegt meiner Erfahrung nach in der Berücksichtigung folgender Punkte:
Was ist das eigentliche Ziel des Prozesses? Das wirkliche Ziel, nicht das aktuelle Ziel oder ein untergeordnetes Ziel.
Stehen alle Akteure hinter der Digitalisierung? Und werden sie auch selbst nutzen, nicht nur delegieren? Auch die oberste Führungsriege und die Sachbearbeiter:innen? („Buy-in“, „Eat your own dogfood“)
Wie vereinfache ich diesen Prozess für alle möglichen Beteiligten, insbesondere die seltenen Nutzer (=die Kunden, die breite Bevölkerung)? („Reduce to the max„)
Wie ermögliche ich trotzdem Flexibilität? („80/20-Regel„)
Wie sorge ich dafür, dass die Prozesse zuverlässig und nachvollziehbar ablaufen?
Wer kann Vorgaben/Automatismen übersteuern, Fehler korrigieren? Wer trägt die Verantwortung dafür? (Sonderfälle wird es immer geben)
Wie führe ich die verschiedenen Nutzer:innen auf dem richtigen Niveau durch den Prozess? („User Experience“)
Können die Nutzer:innen auch weiterfahren, wenn Ihnen gerade ein Schritt nicht klar ist, eine Antwort nicht parat ist?
Beginne wenn möglich mit einem kleinen, spezialisierten Werkzeug, welches schon vielen Beteiligten einen selbsterklärenden Vorteil bietet. Baue erst danach das Riesenprojekt; aber auch das nur Schritt für Schritt. („Unix-Philosophie„)
Beispiel
Am Anfang der Pandemie war die Meldekette Fax-basiert. Hier ein Vorschlag, wie man die Prozesse hätte vereinfachen können und Informationen dezentral hätte erfassen können: Vereinfachung von Labortests
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Blockchain ist eine verteilte Datenbank, an welche nur angehängt werden kann, und bei der eine unbestimmte Gruppe sich gegenseitig misstrauender Akteure jeden Eintrag ändern können muss.
Als eine Art Resultat aus dem obigen Zitat ergibt sich folgende Aussage:
Die Blockchain ist zu kompliziert und inflexibel für die meisten Anwendungen, da sie eine spezialisierte Lösung auf ein sehr komplexes Problem ist, welches ausserhalb verteilter Kryptowährungen kaum anzutreffen sein wird.
Bereits kleine Vereinfachungen an der Problemstellung resultieren in viel einfacheren Lösungen.
Wir können viel aus den Blockchain-Experimenten sowie ihren Vorläufern und Alternativen lernen. Meistens will man jedoch nur eine deutliche kleinere Funktionalität, die damit viel handlicher und verständlicher wird: Zum Beispiel Transparenz (statt Unveränderbarkeit) oder Konsistenz (statt Konsens). Viel davon kann flexibel mittels Zeitstempeln erreicht werden und dürfte erst noch meist gesetzeskompatibler sein.
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Ihren NFT-Selbstversuch schliesst Susanna Petrin mit einer Vision des Lebens nach der Zerstörung unserer Welt: Im Metaversum unsere NFTs bewundernd. Ich… NFT: Gefahr statt Chance weiterlesen
Oftmals hört man Behauptungen über Anwendungszwecke von Blockchain ohne tiefere Überlegungen. Hier ist ein kompaktes, zitierbares Destillat aus «Per Anhalter durch… Blockchain in aller Kürze weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber… Per Anhalter durch die Blockchain weiterlesen
In Deutschland ist soeben ein Projekt zur Blockchainisierung der Schulzeugnisse nach über einer Million € ergebnislos eingestampft worden. Was können wir… Sollen Zeugnisse in die Blockchain? weiterlesen
Eine englische 🇬🇧 Version gibt es hier.
Zusammenfassung
Eine Blockchain ist eine Liste von Datenblöcken, bei der eine (möglicherweise offene) Gruppe von Berechtigten neue Datenblöcke vorschlagen kann, welche dann im Konsens hinzugef…
Kaum war „Mr Bates vs the Post Office“ Anfang 2024 ausgestrahlt, ging im Vereinigten Königreich ein politisches Erdbeben los. Diese Miniserie von James Strong und Gwyneth Hughes hat nicht nur ihr Fernsehpublikum bewegt, sondern auch eine längst überfällige Debatte wieder angeheizt und zu politischen Konsequenzen geführt. (ARTE)
Kaum war „Mr Bates vs the Post Office“ Anfang 2024 ausgestrahlt, ging im Vereinigten Königreich ein politisches Erdbeben los. Diese Miniserie von James Strong…
Der Vortrag im Windlersaal. Man beachte das Demomaterial auf dem Tisch: Legosteine, Milchflasche, 100er-Würfel, (Notariats-)Buch und Notariats-Loseblätter (mit „Kopierer“, Leim und Stempel).
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Ihren NFT-Selbstversuch schliesst Susanna Petrin mit einer Vision des Lebens nach der Zerstörung unserer Welt: Im Metaversum unsere NFTs bewundernd. Ich… NFT: Gefahr statt Chance weiterlesen
Oftmals hört man Behauptungen über Anwendungszwecke von Blockchain ohne tiefere Überlegungen. Hier ist ein kompaktes, zitierbares Destillat aus «Per Anhalter durch… Blockchain in aller Kürze weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber… Per Anhalter durch die Blockchain weiterlesen
In Deutschland ist soeben ein Projekt zur Blockchainisierung der Schulzeugnisse nach über einer Million € ergebnislos eingestampft worden. Was können wir… Sollen Zeugnisse in die Blockchain? weiterlesen
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit und Rechtssicherheit.
Blockchain-Jünger wollen diese Prozesse «verbessern,» erreichen aber das Gegenteil. Zwei Beispiele:
Ein Hauskauf ist schwierig, langwierig und mit Gebühren gespickt. Hier wahrscheinlich ein viel zu stark vereinfachter Ablauf:
Haus suchen
Haus evaluieren (besichtigen etc.)
Haus schätzen (lassen)
Bank aufsuchen
Hypothek aushandeln
Verkaufspreis und -konditionen aushandeln
Notariatstermin finden
Bankbestätigung organisieren
Vertrag zum Notar schicken
Physisch alle gleichzeitig zum Notariat anreisen
Den Vertrag nochmals vorgelesen bekommen
Händisch mehrfach alles unterschreiben
Schlüssel übergeben
Mängel überprüfen
Und an drölfzig Stellen unverständlich hohe Gebühren bezahlen
Kein Wunder, dass viele diesen Vorgang vereinfachen wollen.
Wunschtraum
Wie einfach wäre es doch, wenn das alles per Mausklick funktionieren könnte! Alle Grundstücke wären—wie im Metaverse—als NFT auf der Blockchain gespeichert und würden mittels eines Smart Contracts gehandelt.
Utopie
Die meisten dieser bürokratischen und teuren Vorgänge würden wegfallen, es würde viel Zeit und Geld gespart und der Staat könnte viel schlanker gemacht werden. Wir wären alle glücklicher und würden uns im Wohlstand suhlen.
Realität
Wer sich etwas mit IT-Sicherheit beschäftigt, der weiss, dass:
Ihnen schickt jemand einen Link, auf den Sie «unbedingt» klicken sollen, weil sonst etwas ganz schlimmes geschieht oder ihnen etwas ganz gutes entgeht.
«Elli from Windows» (reales Beispiel von letzter Woche) ruft Ihnen mit indischem Akzent an und will Ihnen angeblich beim Lösen eines Sicherheitsproblems ihres Computers «helfen».
Ihr Rechner mit den Zugangsdaten zu Ihrer Blockchain geht kaputt, verloren oder wird geklaut.
Im schlimmsten Fall sind Sie in der effizienten «schönen neuen Blockchain-Welt» mit einem einzigen falschen Klick ihr Zuhause los. Und am nächsten Tag kommt die Polizei und nimmt Ihre gesamte Familie als Hausbesetzer fest. Der Effizienzgewinn wird für die Verbrecher höher sein als für die normalen Nutzer.
(In der Aufzählung könnte auch ein Programmfehler, ein Tippfehler, ein Irrtum oder eine Unzahl weiterer Möglichkeiten auftauchen.)
Es kann also auch Vorteile haben, persönlich erscheinen zu müssen, sich nochmals bewusst zu werden, was eigentlich passiert und vielleicht jemanden dabei zu haben, der Sie warnt, wenn möglicherweise etwas schief geht. Alle Parteien sind sich danach einig, dass alle anderen sich der Tragweite der Transaktion bewusst waren. Eine ganz wichtige Grundlage für das Vertrauen, das eine funktionierende Gesellschaft benötigt.
Immobilien ohne Rechtsstaat
Ein weiteres häufig gehörtes Argument von Blockchain-Verfechtern: «Ja, das funktioniert, weil wir hier privilegiert sind und Korruption selten vorkommt. Aber stell dir jetzt vor, du wärst in einem Land ohne funktionierenden Rechtsstaat. Banking the unbanked!»
Ja, in gewissen Ländern mag es durchaus vorkommen, dass man mit Anreizen oder Drohungen den Grundbuchamtschef dazu «überreden» kann, kurz und unauffällig den Eigentümer eines Grundstücks zu ändern. Für das Opfer bedeutet das oft einen harten oder aussichtslosen Kampf, um wieder zu seinem Recht zu kommen.
In einem korrupten Land wechsle ich vom korrupten offiziellen Grundbuchamt zu einem Blockchain-basierten Grundbuch. Wie kann ich aber (a) zeigen, dass ich vorher wirklich der Besitzer war? (b) dass die Übertragung in die Blockchain korrekt ist? Und (c) dass niemand mehr das alte System nutzt? Aber vor allem, was mache ich in einem Land ohne stabiles Rechtssystem, wenn (c) mich jemand mit Gewalt aus meinem Haus wirft?
Wir sehen auch hier, dass die Blockchain kein Problem löst. Im Gegensatz zu vorhin schafft sie zumindest nicht automatisch gleichzeitig unzählige neue Probleme.
Für rein digitale Assets mag eine Blockchain-basierte Buchführung alleine relevant sein. Aber sobald davon auch reale Werte und reale Personen betroffen sind, sind Vertrauen und ein stabiles Rechtssystem unerlässlich. Da ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Sorgen wir also dafür, dass in möglichst vielen Gegenden dieser Erde ein vertrauenswürdiges und breit abgestütztes Rechtssystem existiert. Ohne das läuft nichts, weder mit noch ohne Blockchain. Und wenn wir das haben, dann ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Ihren NFT-Selbstversuch schliesst Susanna Petrin mit einer Vision des Lebens nach der Zerstörung unserer Welt: Im Metaversum unsere NFTs bewundernd. Ich… NFT: Gefahr statt Chance weiterlesen
Oftmals hört man Behauptungen über Anwendungszwecke von Blockchain ohne tiefere Überlegungen. Hier ist ein kompaktes, zitierbares Destillat aus «Per Anhalter durch… Blockchain in aller Kürze weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber… Per Anhalter durch die Blockchain weiterlesen
In Deutschland ist soeben ein Projekt zur Blockchainisierung der Schulzeugnisse nach über einer Million € ergebnislos eingestampft worden. Was können wir… Sollen Zeugnisse in die Blockchain? weiterlesen
Am Winterkongress 2022 der Digitalen Gesellschaft habe ich einen Vortrag unter diesem Titel gehalten. Hier finden sich die weiterführenden Links dazu.… Muss es denn immer Blockchain sein? weiterlesen
The Blockchain, a cryptographically linked list with additional restrictions, is often touted to be the most significant innovation towards democratization of the digital landscape, especially the Internet. However, the ideas did not come out of thin air, but have ancestors and relatives. An attempt at technological genealogy.
The timestamping act proper was to be performed by a trusted third party, the Time-Stamping Service (TSS), using standard digital signatures. Cryptographically, a timestamp is indistinguishable from a digital signature; the key difference lies in the semantics:
A conventional digital signature is used to attest authorship of or agreement with the signed contents. Similar to pen and paper signatures, most digital signatures include the date and time at which the signing took place, as ancillary information.
In a timestamp, on the other hand, the date and time is the primary information. It can (and, for some protocols, does) use the same algorithms and message formats as digital signatures above. The signature itself does not imply the signer’s endorsement of the contents; it only implies that any document which matches the timestamp, already existed at that time (assuming the security of the underlying cryptographic algorithms). An example of such a timestamping protocol is outlined in RFC 3161 (2001).
Haber and Stornetta were unhappy to have to completely trust the TSS to not issue timestamps for anything else than the current time, especially their ability at backdating documents, so they proposed two distributed mechanisms which could be used to ascertain (or refute) the honesty of the TSS.
One of the mechanisms would today probably be described as a Distributed Ledger, one of the main properties of blockchains. Unlike blockchains, where the entire database is replicated, they proposed an optimization: Anybody requesting a timestamp would be given information about the next k timestamped documents. This information included the sequence number of the timestamp, the hash of the document, and the ID of the requestor.
As a timestamping client, it was in your own best interest to safeguard this information in addition to the actual timestamp itself. In case of a dispute, you could produce these k additional records and upon contacting their requestors, they would be able to ascertain the fact that your document was timestamped before theirs.
In essence, we have a distributed ledger where everyone has the incentive to store some small piece of information which can be used in their interest.
PGP Digital Timestamping Service (1995)
In 1995, Matthew Richardson created the PGP Digital Timestamping Service. At this time, email was still one of the main machine-to-machine (M2M) interfaces, as there were still hosts without always-on connectivity. Therefore, it was natural to use email as the interface. One of the modes was (and still is today) to send a document or hash thereof to the stamper services’ email address. A few minutes later, a PGP-digitally-signed version of your submission is returned, including a timestamp and a monotonic sequence number.
Richardson did not want to put the burden of safekeeping to the end user. Instead, his system creates daily and weekly summaries of the timestamps it issued, allowing anyone to double-check the timestamps issued against these lists.
For many years, the weekly summaries were also posted to the Usenet group [url=https://groups.google.com/g/comp.security.pgp.announce]comp.security.pgp.announce[/url], which—like most “announce”-Newsgroups—would be automatically archived by many servers around the world.
Software development, especially in teams, have used version control software since the 1970s to keep track of parallel development, experiments, bug fixes, or to determine how bugs got introduced into the system. Traditionally, this has been based on version numbers and central repositories, neither of which worked well when trying to create derivative works: The need for distributed version control systems (DVCS) was born.
In 2001, the first such system, GNU arch, was created. However, DVCSes only really became popular after the introduction of git and it’s use in Linux kernel development in 2005.
DVCS enable every developer to keep a local copy of (part of) the source code and create modifications, some of them which might later be shared with other developers, including the original ones.
Instead of version numbers, which cannot be easily kept unique in such a distributed setting, unique hashes were used to identify the versions. In Git, these hashes are derived from the parent’s hash (or hashes, in case of a merge; see image to the right), the new contents, as well as information about who changed what when and why. The committed version can also contain a PGP signature to authenticate the changes.
Again, we have a cryptographically linked chain (actually, Directed Acyclic Graph, DAG), potentially with signatures, and a protocol to efficiently distribute changes. This again can be used to create a public record.
In addition (and unlike the Blockchain approach which we will see below), diverging changes are common and a process (“merge”) exists to combine the work done in each branch and not waste the efforts invested. This merge can often be done automatically.
Blockchain (2008)
The term Blockchain became known in 2008, born as a distributed ledger of pseudonymous financial transactions in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. As in Git, each block includes the hash of its predecessor as a backward link (i.e., opposite to the logical ordering shown by the arrows in the image to the right, where time flows down).
To avoid blocks being chained randomly, a proof of work (PoW) is required: Only blocks containing a solution to a cryptographic puzzle will be considered as candidate blocks; the complexity of that puzzle is regularly adjusted to match the computational power in the network, keeping the average block creation (aka “mining”) rate at roughly 1 every 10 minutes.
If multiple candidate blocks are available as potential parents, only one is chosen; the work done in different branches is thrown away, even if these blocks/branches do not contain conflicting transactions.
The key to Bitcoin’s success was that apparent democratization through the proof of work. However, concerns about wasting energy have resulted in alternate designs, notably
private blockchains, where only a select set of participants are allowed to maintain blocks and new blocks are accepted based on algorithms related to majority voting.
In the former case, PoS, also called “plutocracy” by some, the “democracy” patina is diluted even further.
In the latter case, depending on the use case, often a much simpler mechanism may be used, resulting in easier-to-maintain systems. However, often the apparent sexyness of the “Blockchain” name is more important. For example, when only a single organization controls the entire blockchain, this reverts back to the case of a single TSS, which Haber and Stornetta worked hard to avoid, as there is no guarantee that the system works as advertised. Even if it does, the lack of transparency, functionality, and battle-testing may even be much less than what is readily available with Git and friends. On the right-hand side, you find a rendering of the qualitative complexity of different mechanisms that are embodied in the Bitcoin Blockchain. Integrity and transparency, the two main goals often associated with Blockchain usage, are very easy to fulfill. The incremental cost of immutability (or tamper-evidence) on top of these two is small. Itis provably impossible to achieve perfect Consensus in asynchronous distributed systems such as the Internet; however, “good enough” approximations can be achieved. Preventing double-spending of cryptocurrency is even harder. In many use cases, the easy three are enough, maybe with a sprinkle of very controlled consensus. Going for the big bubble is therefore mostly wasting resources and adding unnecessary complexity or preventing simple fixes in case of errors.
the fear, that transaction costs might explode, or
the wish of project participants to promote their respective pet solutions.
“Blockchain” is a heavily overloaded (and thus diluted) term. In its original form, it promised transparency and immutability, achieving that at huge amounts of energy wasted by people typically driven by greed. In what is sold to corporate users, it is often (1) unnecessarily complicated and error-prone, (2) not adapted to the actual problem, or (3) just little more than what Git and friends readily provide, but costly relabeled with a sexy buzzword.
Zeitgitter (2019)
As explained above, often all that is needed is
integrity,
transparency,
immutability (or tamper-evidence), and
maybe a limited, well-defined form of consensus.
This is achievable with simple timestamping. With the know-how from Haber-Stornetta, the PGP Digital Timestamping Service, and Git in mind, we created the open-source solution Zeitgitter.
The name comes from the German mental health term Zeitgitterstörung, which translates to confusion of the sense of time or chronotaraxis. So, Zeitgitter itself (without Störung, which is the confusion part) might be translated as the sense of time. It also includes Gitter, which means grid and indicates that the different timestampers are interwoven, mutually interlocking each other into having to say the truth about their timestamps.
The basic design is as follows: Each timestamping server issues digital signatures on content stored in Git repositories and stores proof of this timestamping in a Git repository of its own. In regular intervals, the Zeitgitter timestamping servers cross-timestamp each other, preventing backdating timestamps by more than a short interval.
Basic integration is trivial: Just call [url=https://pypi.org/project/git-timestamp/]git timestamp[/url] whenever you want your standard Git repository timestamped (or automate the process). This easily fits in with the Git ecosystem and automated timestamping is easy.
In contrast to Blockchain-based approaches, already an inexpensive Raspberry Pi can issue several million timestamps per day, with annual cost for device, power, and Internet access being on the order of just a few €/$/CHF, avoiding the need for massive monetary returns.
PGP-based Zeitgitter results in normal signed objects in the repository. Therefore, timestamps can be stored, presented, verified, or propagated like ordinary Git objects; fully decentralized. Blockchain-based timestamping approaches, however, require a centralized gatekeeper to verify or help verify the timestamp; i.e., the timestamp is not self-contained.
Zeitgitter addresses the most common need, namely timestamping, to efficiently ascertain integrity, transparency, and detect tampering. When it comes to issuing timestamps, the requirements for global consensus are very easy to satisfy, unlike many other applications.
If a single authority would like to add these three features, this is all of Blockchain that is needed.
Summary
Most often, “Blockchain” is sold as the solution for all your problems around Digitalisation of your business or administration. However, often the problems lie deeper: The lack of defined processes, missing standardized interchange formats, or even just not knowing well enough what the real goals of the entire digitalisation project should be.
These all-too-common problems resulted in the adage,
If you think that you need a Blockchain: By the time that you are ready to use it, you probably don’t need it anymore.
Even if some of the features are actually required, probably all that you need is timestamping, which can be much more easily achieved using RFC 3161 (centralized) timestamping protocol or Zeitgitter as a distributed version.
An extended version of this article, with a slightly different focus, will be presented in German at DigiGes Winterkongress 2022.
Updates
2022-03-06: At the beginning of the Haber/Stornetta section, elaborated on the relationship between digital signatures and timestamps (and mentioned RFC 3161).
This is the time to catch up on what you missed during the year. For some, it is meeting the family. For others, doing snowsports. For even others, it is cuddling up and reading. This is an article for the latter.
As an avid reader, you know my arguments that neither NFT nor smart contracts live up to their promises, and that the blockchain underneath is also more fragile and has a worse cost-benefit ratio than most believe. Similarly, I also claim the same for the metaverses built on top of them all. And that the… Read more: NFTs are unethical
Bureaucracy and inefficiency are frowned upon, often rightly so. But they also have their good sides: Properly applied, they ensure reliability and legal certainty. Blockchain disciples want to “improve” bureaucracy-ridden processes, but achieve the opposite. Two examples:
Yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released its indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried. It details the financial entanglements of FTX, Alameda Research and more than a hundred other companies and individuals. We have tried to disentangle these allegations somewhat for you.
Drew Austin raises an important question in Wired: How should we deal with our accumulated personal data? How can we get from randomly hoarding to selection and preservation? And why does his proposed solution of Web3 not work out? A few analytical thoughts.
Pro Senectute beider Basel, a foundation to help the elderly around Basel, launched its NFT project last week and already informed about its Metaverse commitment beforehand. According to a media release, Michael Harr, managing director of the 15-million Basel-based company, wants to use the purchase of these “properties” in a “central location” in two online… Read more: Rejuvenation for Pro Senectute through NFT and Metaverse?
Mit nicht weniger als fünf Blockchains sollte sichergestellt werden, dass der digitale Impfnachweis in Deutschland fälschungssicher ist. Der Plan sorgte für Spott und Kritik – nun kommt alles anders.
Vorsicht: Dieser Artikel widerspiegelt mein Verständnis. Ich habe versucht, dies unabhängig überprüfen zu lassen, habe jedoch kein Feedback erhalten. Ich freue mich über allfällige Bestätigungen/Korrekturen! Bei PoH sind die Hashes nicht mehr parallelisierbar
... mehr anzeigen
Was ist Proof of History?
Ein Versuch zur Erklärung des «Proof of History»-Mechanismus der Solana-Blockchain.
Vorsicht: Dieser Artikel widerspiegelt mein Verständnis. Ich habe versucht, dies unabhängig überprüfen zu lassen, habe jedoch kein Feedback erhalten. Ich freue mich über allfällige Bestätigungen/Korrekturen! Bei PoH sind die Hashes nicht mehr parallelisierbarPoH könnte man auch als lückenhafte Mini-Blockchain ansehen Einen dritten Ansatz neben Proof of Work und Proof of Stake verfolgt die Blockchain Solana. Deren Mechanismus, «Proof of History» (PoH), könnte in etwa mit «Beweis verstrichener Zeit» übersetzt werden und ist eine Art vereinfachter Zeitstempel. Bei Proof of Work werden Abermillionen von Hashes gleichzeitig parallel berechnet, bis ein gemeinsamer Block gefunden wird. Bei PoH erzeugt jeder Rechenknoten so schnell Blöcke hintereinander, wie er kann, so als ob er jedes Mal eine Eins gewürfelt hätte. Aber nur Blöcke, die auch eine Transaktion beinhalten, werden auch abgespeichert und kommuniziert. In regelmässigen Abständen werden dann diese Teilblockchains miteinander verknüpft.
Im Gegensatz zu PoW hat keiner der Rechenknoten einen Anreiz, mehr als einen Prozessor gleichzeitig mit Hashberechnungen zu beschäftigen, weil bei PoH jede Hashberechnung erst gestartet werden kann, wenn die vorhergehende abgeschlossen ist. Der Druck zu mehr Energie entfällt damit. Aber es fehlen auch unabhängige Analysen zur Sicherheit dieses Blockchain-Mechanismus; das verwendete Konsensmodell ist eigentlich nur für geschlossene Benutzergruppen vorgesehen (siehe nächsten Abschnitt).
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Blockchain, Kryptowährungen, Smart Contracts, Web3 und NFTs sind zur Zeit in aller Munde. Fast jeder hat dazu eine Meinung, aber kaum jemand versteht die
Here are some attempts to compare Proof of History (PoH), as used by the Solanablockchain, with Proof of Work (PoW). Comparisons to real-world activities, such as dice rolling or outer-space rubber-stamp throwing are also included.
Please note: This post represents my understanding of how PoH works; I have not been able to get positive/negative feedback about it; I’m still looking forward to confirmations or corrections.
[Added 2022-03-20] Before we look at PoH, let’s revisit some of the PoW analogies, parallel dice rolling and rubber-stamp throwing. Then, the differences between the PoW analogies and their PoH equivalents, serialized dice rolling and rubber-stamp throwing. Plus, you will find a micro-blockchain analogy as well.
You may already be aware of the technical description of Proof of Work, as made popular by Bitcoin: A seemingly infinite army of processors tuned to perform SHA-256 calculations, repeatedly hashes the header of a candidate block, until a “small enough” value results.
“Small enough” is defined by the current difficulty, which is regularly adjusted (about every two weeks) such that the average time to mine a block remains at 10 minutes.
SHA-256 hashing (as every other cryptographic hash function) is a deterministic operation, so calculating the hash over the same block results multiple times will result in the same values. Therefore, the Bitcoin block header contains a Nonce field, which will be changed before every hash operation.
This operation can be fully parallelized, i.e., any number of hash processors can perform their calculations in parallel, without a need to coordinate.
Dice rolling analogy
At the current difficulty, about 120 x 10²¹ hash operations are required before a hash results meets the difficulty requirement (120 trilliard in the long scale; or 120 sextillion in the short scale). This is equivalent of rolling a dice with 120 trilliard sides.
As this is hard to imagine: If we divide the earth’s surface (510 million km²) by 120 x 10²¹, we get 42 cm². Thus, the earth could serve as an appropriate die, if each die side was 6 cm by 7 cm big.
(Ok, all right, it is still hard to imagine. But now, it is somewhat clearer that this is really an unbelievably humongous number.)
Outer space rubber stamp throwing
Another “useful” analogy might be to throw rubber stamps from space until they hit a randomly placed document’s 6 by 7 cm² stamp area (again, a chance of 1 in 120 trilliard per throw). This can be completely parallelized, given enough stamps and hands to throw them.
Proof of History
PoW combines consensus and progress into essentially a single mechanism. Solana, however, splits this into two:
PoH is used to make and record progress at each node individually, while
Proof of History aims to avoid the energy waste associated with Proof of Work. Hash computations can no longer be parallelized, therefore, there is no incentive to have more than one processor per node performing the calculations.
The hash operations are strictly serialized, i.e., it is impossible to begin the calculations necessary for the next hash before the calculations for the previous hash have ended.
Also, there is no shortcut. Let’s look at a counter-example: If each operation were a linear operation, e.g., an addition with a constant C or a multiplication with a fixed factor F, several steps could be combined. I.e., hundred steps could be performed at the same time by just adding 100*C or multiplying by 100*F. By their very design, cryptographic hash functions need to be non-linear, therefore, these shortcuts are impossible.
While creation is strictly linear and serial, verification, however, can be parallelized: Someone who has received a large number of these PoH fragments between two well-defined locations, can verify the accuracy of each of those fragments in parallel to all other fragments. (The verification of a single fragment would still require to go through the hashes strictly in sequence, though.)
Dice rolling analogy
Probably the least helpful (and entertaining) of these PoH analogies is dice rolling: You can roll the next die only after the previous was rolled.
Outer space rubber stamp throwing
More fun (if still somewhat outlandish, even literally) is it to have our space-faring blockchain enthusiasts throw auto-homing rubber stamps:
The way the rubber of the stamp is carved determines the aerodynamics of the falling stamp. Imagine, for a second, that the carving would affect the trajectory in the atmosphere in such a way, that the same carving results in the same landing destination, independent of where the stamp was thrown from and how fast it was thrown. Because our fairy tale rubber stamp aerodynamics are so complicated, nobody can determine the landing location without actually throwing the stamp and waiting for it to land.
Now, the PoH rule is to throw the next stamp only after the first one has landed, carving the previous stamp’s exact location into the new stamp’s rubber. This results in a pre-determined pattern of landing locations to be recorded by the stamps. Even though it is pre-determined, it cannot be calculated without actually throwing the stamps and waiting for each of them to land.
Micro-Blockchain analogy
A third analogy would be to look at what each mining node produces as a blockchain, with slightly changed rules:
There is no endless dice rolling to create a new block, i.e., every “micro-block” is valid (otherwise said, you always roll a winning one, or “every block counts”)
Only micro-blocks that have any transactions in them will be output, together with information about the number of skipped empty blocks. (This is all the information that is required to reconstruct those blocks that were skipped.)
This can be seen in the image on the right: The hash chain (H) makes continuous progress. If any transaction T arrives, it is included in the hash calculation and the result R output and recorded, ready for inclusion into the next actual blockchain block (which we could also call “macro-block”).
Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, Web3 and NFT are the talk of the town. Almost everyone has an opinion, but hardly anyone understands the foundations or relationships. The goal of this series, whose first part you are currently reading, is to provide a structured presentation of promises, the technology behind, and the reality. Using everyday analogies such as space-faring, stamp-throwing, anarchist notaries, the concepts are explained in a trilogy in five parts.
Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, Web3 and NFT are the talk of the town. Almost everyone has an opinion, but hardly anyone understands the foundations or relationships. The goal of this series, whose first part you are currently reading, is to provide a structured presentation of promises, the technology behind, and the reality. Using everyday analogies such as space-faring, stamp-throwing, anarchist notaries, the concepts are explained in a trilogy in five parts.
Solutions based on blockchain have been proposed as solutions to any problem even only remotely related to IT, digitalization, economy, democracy, and society. Like for every new topic, thinkers, gold diggers, freeloaders, charlatans, and doomsday prophets show up in an colorful mixture, making it hard to keep track of things.
The goal of this series of articles is to provide sound insight both to newcomers and experts, in an easy-to read manner. The focus is — as much as this is possible in this complicated, entangled topic — to present properties and relations transparently, substantively, and in a structured manner. Guidance will be provided by illustrative and memorable, sometimes hilarious, metaphors.
The huge topic will be structured in five layers:
The blockchain proper, a way to store data transparently and immutably (this article);
cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum built on top of blockchain, which are touted to revolutionize our financial system (in an upcoming article); and
smart contracts, which — as generalizations of (conditional) cryptocurrency transactions — are hailed to simplify building and enforcing contracts (in an upcoming article). These smart contracts are used to build:
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital artworks ready to revolutionize artist payments, art trade, and copyright (in an upcoming article); and
the promise of a democratization of the Internet, dubbed Web 3.0 or Web3, also the basis for decentralized autonomous organisations (DAO; in an upcoming article).
Each of these five layers will first be presented and objectively analysed in four chapters, followed by two more chapters of personal assessment and a list of take-away questions. Due to the complexity of the matter, this separation is not always
What hopes and promises stand behind the technology and which problems they are supposed to solve.
An accessible introduction of the inner workings of the actual technology and their possibilities and limitations.
Are blockchain-based solution the only possibility to address the problem? If not, what are alternatives and substitutes?
A subjective evaluation of the technology based on the items above.
A list of questions to ask yourself or an expert, before investing (financially or technologically) into that particular layer.
Ready? Let’s wink our Electronic Thumb and put our Babel fish into our ears, and let’s go! First stop: The foundational layer, the blockchain itself.
I tried to keep this text as neutral as possible. During my research, however, I learned two things:
Blockchain advocates criticize the current economic system as being plagued by greed, inefficiency, lack of transparency, and excessive complexity. However, the goal toward which these advocates work, is a new, now digital, economy, plagued by greed, inefficiency, lack of transparency, and excessive complexity.
Whenever I asked for a tangible benefit of blockchain-based technology compared to a solution without blockchain, the answers have been evading or inconsistent.
Nevertheless, this entire field is due for more insight. The Blockchain ecosystem has raised several important questions, and addressing them is relevant for the future of our society and our interaction with technology. The «blockchain» term was able to score high in the Buzzword Charts for over a decade. That alone should be reason enough for an in-depth analysis and understanding of this phenomenon.
“Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” but if some technology is being sold as magic, it is important to ask if the technology actually can do what it claims or whether it is only capable of magic smoke-and-mirrors. (Or, to put it another way, if something seems too good to be true, it often is).
Trust increases efficiency and reduces complexity. Blockchain solutions want to do away with any form of trust. They buy this with inefficiency and complexity. (Or to put it another way: complexity is the enemy of security, transparency, efficiency and trust).
This is not a “management summary” but a “summary for non-managers” (or non-decision makers), because I think that especially decision makers should understand more about a technology that is considered revolutionary, that they can ask the right questions to distinguish dazzle from real benefit.
The blockchain was created as a solution to a very specific, particularly complex problem: Creating a digital equivalent of paper money, trying to prevent counterfeiting while attempting(!) to preserve anonymity. For this problem, it may be a good solution when applied directly. For most other processes, it is massive over-engineering, as even small changes to the preconditions lead to much more efficient solutions. But to know and understand these factors, a deeper understanding is needed. And this is exactly the goal of this text.
In the course of its creation, the text has become larger than planned. However, it has also gained in readability and comprehensibility. In other words, it was written precisely with the target audience of executives and decision-makers (and grandfathers and granddaughters) in mind: Many memorable analogies and explanatory comparisons with the real world, also suitable to liven up a business or family dinner.
I think the text deserves a chance: the advantage of text is that you can skim individual passages at any time and ruefully read it later after all, without resenting it. The often exaggerated, colorfully highlighted introductory sentences to a chapter hopefully help with these reading decisions.
This development bears the signatures of cryptoanarchy and anarcho-capitalism, i.e., of movements that want to avoid trust in organizations and structures and, in particular, distrust the state. Only programs (“code is law“) or free, i.e. unregulated, markets deserve trust. This trait runs through all levels, even though they are most visible in cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.
Promises
The only chapter blockchain enthusiasts would advise you to read.
Since blockchain and Bitcoin emerged at the same time, the term blockchain is colloquially sometimes also used (pars pro toto)for applications based on it (cryptocurrency, smart contracts, etc.) as well as the respective ecosystems. In the context of this series, I will try to clearly separate the terms.
The four to six properties that a blockchain has or should have are not uniformly defined:
A distributed ledger as a transaction list with an unchangeable past.
Cryptography to ensure the integrity of accounting and authenticity of transactions.
Distributed, failure-tolerant consensus on the content of the ledger and the validity of transactions: All blockchain participants should be able to agree on a common world view (e.g., account balances), even when not all participants are always available.
Business processes (“business logic”), which are to ensure the validity of transactions and implement them (account management, smart contracts, …). We will defer this area to the next two articles, where they have the necessary context.
This is very abstract, especially as long as it remains unclear what is the actual goal to achieve. Since this article has set out to clearly structure the complex matter and we would like to be evaluated against this goal, we need to answer one more question first: What do heck do people want to use these features for? So let’s look at a typical “10 Applications for Blockchain” list and then extract or structure the benefits listed there:
International financial transactions: Data consistency, tamper resistance, removing intermediaries→lower transaction costs and higher transaction speed.
Healthcare: Storage in a distributed network allows storage of sensitive data: Patient records, medical findings, and clinical histories. Access only by users authorized by the owner.
Identity management: ID documents can be digitally converted securely, with no data loss; more secure and faster.
Prevention of money laundering: Transparency, record keeping, and attribution.
Insurance: Smart contracts for claims processing, insurance fraud detection.
Supply Chain Management: Simpler contracts, continuous tracking of goods, transparent documentation of supply chains from origin to store. Faster/simpler/cheaper investigations.
Mobility: Access rights, documentation of ownership, automatic vehicle rental+billing, secure billing even with electric vehicles.
Energy market: Dealing with change, traceability of transactions (private energy feed-in), billing/payment at e-fueling stations.
Digital elections: No fear of manipulation, tracking every vote.
Degree certificates: Issue degrees/certificates that cannot be falsified, internationally recognized.
These topics cover a wide spectrum, from blockchain itself to cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. It would be great if this could solve so many outstanding problems of modern civilization. However, since this hasn’t happened in the last 14 years, it doesn’t seem to be that simple after all.
In the following (large) technology chapter, let’s take a look at the features and techniques used to solve these challenges before we move on to the reality check. Since we are focusing on the blockchain itself here, we will discuss the topics of data consistency/anti-tampering, data loss prevention, transparency/records and (partial) attribution/traceability/falsification at the end of this article We will look at the rest of the points in more detail in subsequent articles, after the necessary foundation stones have been laid.
Technology
The chapter in which the almost impenetrable jungle is explored and mapped. Overview of the elements of the Bitcoin blockchain. On the left, the actual chain, a concatenation of blocks. Each block (center) contains, in particular, a list of transactions (right). The technology of the lowest level alone, the blockchain, is quite complex. Before we go into depth, here is an overview, based on Bitcoin.
Currently, the Bitcoin blockchain is about 730,000 blocks long and a new one is added about every 10 minutes. Each of these blocks contains a collection of transactions. The whole thing is managed jointly (by consensus) by the computers (nodes) that build the system and where actually everyone can participate (no special authorization is needed).
To understand the interplay, let’s look at it in several small steps that together make up a table of contents for this technology chapter:
This is followed by a short summary so that you can see the forest for the trees.
Before we analyze a digital blockchain, let’s build an analogy with paper and offices. We will watch anarchic accountants (or notaries) keep a tamper-proof loose-leaf collection. Those who want (and know the Hitchhiker’s Guide background) are welcome to imagine them as members of the Golgafrinchan “B” ark.
Analogy: notary’s office
The subchapter where we build ourselves an unchanging loose-leaf collection. First stamped loose-leaf Let’s start our approach to blockchain technology with an analogy from the analog world: an anarchic mix between accounting and the notary’s office. (As junior notaries, they are initially only allowed to juggle small financial assets. In later chapters, they are then allowed to notarize contracts and transfers of tangible assets. That is why we call them “notaries” even now, although they are more into bookkeeping for the time being).
For efficiency reasons, several notaries share the work. Because of the chronic back pain that came with it, the large, heavy notarial book with the collected confirmations of the last centuries has been abolished. Instead, a loose-leaf collection (much more popular with legal staff anyway) is used. So on the first day, the responsible notary fills out the list of transactions and confirms their accuracy with her official stamp. Second loose-leaf with copy of the first The next day, the notary on duty repeats the same procedure. But so that none of the notaries can later replace the sheet from the previous day with another, his list for today includes a scaled-down copy of the yellow list from the previous day. He stamps this compilation in the evening as usual to confirm its accuracy.
On the third day, the process is repeated with a third notary. This one also stamps his list in the evening together with a scaled-down copy of the list from the previous day, on which, transitively, again a scaled-down copy of the day before last can be seen and so on. Third loose-leaf with copy of the second, on which the first is also visible Continuing this process, the notaries generate a common chain of documents in a coordinated manner. In this chain, no previous document can be exchanged without simultaneously adjusting all subsequent documents as well. And that would definitely attract attention.
But coordination of the stamping right and duty also requires trust and recognition of authority. Below we will see how we can solve the paper blockchain without this prior agreement (and thus trust in anyone), because this is also the cryptoanarchic basis for the digital blockchain.
For simplicity’s sake, our junior notaries have a set work schedule for now and enjoy their time off, so there are no conflicts over who is responsible for which day. This will change as we get closer to understanding the real blockchain.
Digital Blockchain
The subchapter where we digitize the loose-leaf collection with Lego bricks. The blockchain as stacked Lego blocks Let’s switch to the digital blockchain, such as the one used by Bitcoin. It works very similar to the loose-leaf collection above: Each block consists of a list of transactions and someone asserts the veracity of the list. This someone is generally called the “creator” here; in cryptocurrencies, they are commonly know as “miners”.
A cryptographic checksum, a so-called hash, can be calculated for each block, and the checksum of the predecessor block is then stored in the current block, analogously to the scaled-down copy of the previous day in the notary example above. This means that the new block is irrevocably bound to its predecessor block and, indirectly (or transitively), to all of its ancestors. Each block is unique (especially its end plate) For a more detailed understanding, let’s tune our stackable blocks a bit: Instead of always having the same well-known regular Lego pattern, where each block matches every other block, each block now has a unique dot pattern on top, corresponding to its unique hash. The following block must now-like a matching lock and key-have the exact matching hole pattern so that the two blocks can be stacked. The next block must have the matching holes, otherwise stacking will fail The properties of the hashes used are such that even if all the computers in the world did nothing else for billions of years, they could not find a second block that had the same hash value. The end result is that we have a perfect reduction of the previous block stored in the current block: Instead of the 1-2 megabytes that a typical predecessor block occupies, only 32 bytes, about 50,000x less, are used.
(In contrast to the paper analogy, where it is still possible to read out all details directly from the slightly reduced copy, it is impossible to read out any contents of the predecessor block from the hash alone. The actual purpose of both paper copy and hash-the unique identification of the predecessor block-is, however, perfectly satisfied in both cases).
Wanted: Notaries without duty roster
The subchapter where we liberate the notaries and finally allow them to live and work independently.
Our notaries used to have a clear duty roster: On each day, exactly one person was responsible for keeping the list. The list was created by mutual agreement or by assignment of their boss. Bitcoin is a brainchild of both crypto-anarchy and the outrage at the behavior of the central power structures in the financial crisis; accordingly, there must be no supervisor role of any kind there! No matter how useful a boss is in increasing the efficiency of coordination and creating rules, at some point a boss could abuse their power and there would be no mechanism within the system to prevent it.
In the real world, there are mechanisms for deposing abusive or corrupt superiors, but this dismissal can sometimes be lengthy and laborious. Real-world mechanisms to prevent and detect bad developments at an early stage include honesty, empathy, and trust. These evolutionary advantages lead to avoiding such situations or remedying them quickly. However, these require regular interaction and therefore do not scale to 8 billion people. And they do not fit into the crypto-anarchic world view anyway, according to which one does not want to make oneself dependent on anyone. Probably the best-known examples of self-organization are provided by schools of fish and flocks of birds. Maybe some of you even remember the exaggerated (and thus particularly catchy) depiction of the moonfish in “Finding Nemo”. (Image: adiprayogo liemena at Pexels) This leaves only agreement between the notaries as a way out, the above-mentioned consensus. However, not only do we not have a boss who makes a duty roster, we also do not have a boss who hires notaries or calls them back if one of the notaries prefers to go fishing on their scheduled work day.
That means, we need a system that has to cope with a constantly changing number of notaries, all of whom do not want to take an aptitude test beforehand and do not want to announce their presence or absence beforehand. The purest chaos. Or, somewhat nicer, a self-organizing (or, even more educated, autopoietic) system.
Human groups are much less homogeneous than schools of fish; accordingly, there are hardly any self-organizing groups with more than a dozen people. For larger groups, sooner or later structures for the division of labor therefore emerge. In standardized work processes, these structures reduce the coordination effort and thus increase efficiency. But it is precisely these structures with the associated power positions and dependencies that one wants to avoid with cryptocurrencies. This is at the expense of efficiency, as we will see next.
Organizational structure
The subchapter in which notary publics learn to communicate with each other from their home offices. A network to bind them all For our paper-based notaries to form a notary’s office, we need to have both
an organizational structure (in this subchapter) and
an incentive or punishment system (carrot and stick), i.e., a substitute for bosses and wages, which we look at in the upcoming chapter.
First, the structure: All those who want to try their best at being notaries become part of a network of equal partners, also known as a peers, for the purpose of exchanging information. In such a peer-to-peer network, (1) transactions which are to be included in the blockchain are communicated to everyone, and (2) the newly created blocks (or, in the analogy, the stamped paper slips) are stored by everyone.
This peer-to-peer system is a set of computers (“nodes”, in the figure on the right the circles with the letters) and a number of connections (channels or “edges”) between them, over which messages can be exchanged. Now, if the blue node A has a new message, it sends it to all of its neighbors, as indicated by the blue arrows; in this case, nodes B and C. If the information is new for these two and passes their validity checks, they in turn send the information on to all their other neighbors: Thus B sends the message to C and D (red arrows). A is left out, since B has received the message from there and thus knows that A already must have this information.
C in turn sends the message to its neighbors B, E, and F. On the connection between B and C, the message travels once in either direction, since at the time of sending, B and C have no way of knowing that their respective peers already know the message.
This so-called “flooding” creates a (tiny) tidal wave, sweeping through the entire system of channels, reaching all the nodes from A to G. Many of the participants receive the message multiple times, in the worst case once from each neighbor. Not very efficient, but that’s how it is when you can’t or won’t trust anyone.
Finally, this means for our notaries that they can write off any thoughts of ever having any free time again. While this is not particularly conducive to motivation, it is robust against failure (or even malice) of individual participants. Lacking central authority, there are no options for sanctions, so everyone must look out for themselves first and rely as little as possible on anyone else. From a cryptoanarchic point of view, this waste is better than trust; a pattern that accompanies us again and again throughout the entire ecosystem.
Carrot and stick
The subchapter where we motivate freelancers.
However, the above-mentioned flooding of messages through the notary network is only a tiny part of the daily grind: our notaries not only have to constantly forward all messages, but everyone also has to constantly update the transaction list, because you do not trust your colleagues to do it right. On the other hand, this also means that from now on you have no free time, because you are busy working around the clock and checking the work of your colleagues. And even this is done in a very inefficient way.
But first back to real-world day-to-day work: One way to keep a team “on track” is to create an incentive system with defined criteria and rewards. With human teams, verifying that criteria have been met is very difficult, even if it has been attempted with piecework, for example; this is know to reduce (good) intrinsic motivation to (not as powerful) mostly extrinsic motivation, known as the Overjustification effect. This is hardly sustainable, as quantity comes at the expense of quality, or team members try to make their own performance look better or belittle the performance of colleagues: Intrigue, concealment, lies, and manipulation, possibly up to sabotage. These are key elements to guarantee suspense in movies and novels, but in reality they are highly detrimental to productivity and the achievement of common goals.
In our exotic notary’s office, processes are simple, repetitive, and standardized, which is why most blockchains assume objective measurability of work performance. Thus, a monetary incentive system was created for Bitcoin, which awards a reward (in Bitcoin) based on concrete, verifiable rules for the creation of a block if this block is generally recognized. This is why this procedure is called “Proof of Work” (PoW).
So far, so simple. But how can you punish someone if they have not done their work well enough? You make the work so strenuous and tedious that no one does it voluntarily unless they can expect to be generously rewarded for it!
Thus, the incentive is based on one of the strongest motivators humans have: Greed. Greed for money and power. And this incentive also works perfectly, at least superficially. But precisely because of its now corrupting strength, greed leads to the inexhaustible human inventiveness being put to its service and loopholes being sought and found. More on this after the facts in the “reality” chapters in this and the next post.
Work and wages
The subchapter in which honest cooperation is finally rewarded.
Anyone who wants to add a new block to the Bitcoin blockchain receives a reward of currently 6¼ Bitcoin (₿) for creating (“mining”) the new block, which is currently equivalent to just under a quarter of a million Swiss Francs (or, approximately, $ or € or £). Not bad for 10 minutes of work! And no wonder greed has become the driving force. (More on finance and its role in the ecosystem in the next article).
If you want to claim that quarter of a million, what do you have to do?
Collect incoming valid transactions (more on this then in the next article on cryptocurrencies and transactions).
Include as many pending transactions as possible in the new block to be created.
Process the block until “enough work” has been done (explained next).
The creator (“miner”) of these blocks then receives the 6¼ ₿ reward as well as the transaction fees of all transactions included in this block (the collected transaction fees of a block only amount to roughly 1 % of the mining reward, as of today). Let’s hope this is you!
This so-called d100 (or “Percentile dice”) has “only” 100 faces. On average, it shows a 1 every hundredth roll. “Sufficient work” is done when a cryptographic puzzle has been solved that requires repeated, arduous trial and error. For example, any mining computer on the Bitcoin network could tirelessly roll a 120-sextillion-sided die (1 sextillion is a 1 followed by 21 zeros!) until it scores a 1. This successful dice roll is obtained on average after 120 sextillion attempts. With this result, the “Proof of Work”, the miner can claim the block and collect the reward. Our notaries incessantly drop 120 sextillion stamps from the ISS Our notaries do not play dice, of course. But they love hide-and-seek games, are very forgetful, and at the same time passionate space tourists. That’s why, when their transaction collection work is done, they hide their completed transaction list somewhere on the 510 million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface, immediately forgetting where they put it, and head off into space. From there, they throw their rubber stamps as fast as they can onto the earth’s surface until one hits the 6 cm by 7 cm stamp field of their transaction list. (510 million km² / 120 sextillion ≈ 42 cm². 42. honestly! Hopefully nobody seriously gets the idea to use the earth as a giant ball…).
Computers do not roll dice or throw stamps, since cheating would be too easy with both techniques. Therefore, when attempting to “mine” a new block, a specially designated field in this new candidate block is filled with a random content until the value of the checksum (“hash”) over the block is sufficiently small; as small as it gets only once every 120 sextillion times. This sufficiently small hash, after countless trials, is thus the proof of our work. (Incidentally, the hash of the block cannot be predicted without actually computing it, i.e., there is no shortcut).
The more computing power there is for mining, the faster this puzzle is solved. However, a design decision of the Bitcoin protocol states that a new block should be added every 10 minutes on average. To ensure that this remains the case as computing power increases or fluctuates, the definition of “enough work” must be regularly adjusted to reflect the computing power available on the network. In Bitcoin, this adjustment of the difficulty happens every two weeks.
In the dice analogy, this would mean that if there are more or faster participants in the network, the dice would also be rolled with a correspondingly larger die, and thus the dice would have to be rolled more frequently until a one appears. (In the case of our space notaries, the size of the target field for the stamps would be reduced).
This results in the following:
It depends extremely on chance who “mines” the block and “wins” the quarter of a million. To achieve more even, predictable payouts, miners gather in pools, which then divide the proceeds among themselves.
It can happen that several nodes get lucky almost simultaneously and find one of the countless (around 1 septendecillion, a 1 with 54 zeros) possible solutions to the cryptographic puzzle. Thus, several valid new blocks exist simultaneously. In general, these blocks differ by the list of transactions included in them, so they are not interchangeable. Accordingly, the system must make a choice as to which block to continue working with. Details are given below. All others who have unsuccessfully “rolled the dice” have another chance (like in the lottery) with the next block. At some point the big win must come…
While the carrot is the chance to win (like a played lottery ticket), the stick could be seen as the wanton tearing of the lottery ticket: If you have made the immense effort to mine a valid block (“rolled a one”), but the other nodes in the Bitcoin network don’t accept that block because you made a mistake (e.g., recorded an invalid transaction), then you forfeit your chance to win and are guaranteed to remain on the accrued costs (electricity costs for computer and cooling, rent, amortization, …) without even a hint of a chance to win.
As long as someone believes that his or her accumulated costs are lower than the long-term expected share of a block’s proceeds, they will try to set up additional mining capacity. I.e., computing power follows the price of bitcoin as long as no bans change the rules).
Collapse of mining rate in China (yellow) after de facto ban on cryptocurrencies (Image: CBECI). The Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (CBECI) assumes an annual electricity consumption of 125 TWh for bitcoin mining, the Digiconomist of 200 TWh. At the (for western Europe: unrealistically) low electricity price of 5 US cents per kWh assumed by CBECI, electricity alone would cost 6.25 or 10 billion USD, or 20 or 32 million dollars per day(!), and the trend is rising.
The subchapter in which we try our hand at forgery and fail gloriously. Finding a matching replacement block is “impossible” One of the important arguments in favor of a blockchain is its immutability. Thus, replacing an existing, established block in the blockchain with another at a later date is not possible without also laboriously adapting each of the subsequent blocks (remember the loose-leaf analogy). That is, we cannot simply take one of the blue-purple blocks (for example, the one labeled “OK” in the image to the right) and replace it “just like that” with the cyan block (“BAD”), which is why it is also crossed out in red. This is due to the security of the cryptographic hash function used.
What would have to happen to replace the block “just like that”?
The Bitcoin network combines a massive computing power for its proof of work, and consumes 500 times more electricity than the world’s most powerful supercomputer. And despite this phenomenal computing power, the entire Bitcoin network would have to calculate for 20 octillion years to replace one block with another so that its checksum (hash) would be the same as that of the original block, i.e. it could be accepted as a valid member of the chain. (Whether it would actually be accepted is another matter).
20 quindecillion years are written as 2 with 49 zeros. Who prefers comparisons to the age of the universe: all those computers would have had to calculate continuously since the big bang more than 13 billion years ago and still would only have completed a minuscule fraction (one dodecillionth; a dodecillion being a 1 followed 39 zeros!) of their Sisyphus work. (And even Deep Thought would probably find the answer to the “question of all questions about life, the universe and all the rest” faster than a replacement block).
People from the IT security environment cautiously call this “impracticable”; ordinary mortals, however, prefer “impossible”.
Alternative rules
The subchapter where notaries look for a less repetitive, easier job.
The proof-of-work rules inevitably lead to energy waste, which usually only increases with time or popularity. This pleases neither environmentalists nor the operators of the mining computers (“rigs”) themselves: They would rather rake in more money themselves than spend it on electricity and hardware. Accordingly, alternative systems have been and are being considered, in particular Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of History (PoH).
The goal of all these rules is to achieve security, speed, and decentralization at the same time. Unfortunately, no one has yet managed to achieve all three simultaneously in an open blockchain. Despite intensive attempts, trade-offs have always been necessary so far, a realization which is referred to as the “blockchain trilemma“.
What is Proof of Stake? The underlying assumption is that the more shares of a cryptocurrency you own, the more likely you are to care about the welfare of the cryptocurrency as such and thus would not act against the interests of the cryptocurrency. (Since this would assume an extremely homogeneous humanity, this claim certainly does not cover everyone.)
Let’s start again with an analogy, a self-organizing village. The villagers feel disturbed in their work and leisure time day and night by the hectic running around of the proof-of-work notaries. Due to their lack of sleep, the notaries have also become very anti-social; no one wants to have anything to do with them anymore. Therefore, the Council of Elders decides to switch to Proof of Stake, and thus from (proof-of-work) miners to (proof-of-stake) validators.
Here is the PoS process using the example of the validator committee responsible for March: Timeline of committee activity for Proof of Stake (PoS)
Per hectare of land ownership, its owner can request a say in the new PoS village council. Those who own less must join with others and someone represents this pool; the internal organization in the pool does not matter to the other residents.
Before January: Anyone who wants to apply for the right to a say must put their property on the line for this, so-called “staking” (and therefore also putting your land at stake). This application (and the accompanying pledge of the property) is entered in the blockchain and notarized (we will see how in a moment).
January: 128 hectares are selected each month for the month after next (here, March) from the hectares with an active stake. Their representatives will be engaged as “validators” (or confirmers) for March.
This PoS participation replaces PoW mining. It too comes with carrots and sticks: in their month of service (and only then), validators work analogously to PoW notaries. Instead of validating their honesty by willing to do useless work (endless dice rolling or stamp dropping), they do so by giving a portion of their real property as a pledge of their honesty, as seen above.
February: The committee prepares mentally for their mission (to ensure that everyone is in the same boat at the beginning of March).
March: For each day, one of the validators on duty was also selected as the “proposer”. This person maintains the loose-leaf list for that day. At the end of the day, they stamp the list, again with a small copy of the previous day’s sheet for chaining.
April: All validators review the loose-leaf collection of their month of service.
May: Our (March) validators go to the (May) validators responsible for the current month. There, they declare their support for the work submitted by their respective daily proposers by signing the current (May) loose-leaf. This process is called “attestation”. As soon as ⅔ of all March validators have attested, March is considered “justified” (or, more simply, confirmed) and the March validators receive their success reward: additional, new plot shares (the carrot, the substitute for the “mining reward” of PoW).
Additional complexity not covered above comes from the fact that Ethereum splits this work across 65 blockchains (one main or coordination chain, the “beacon chain”; and 64 transaction chains, the “shard chains”)
However, the greatest complexity in any distributed system always arises from the detection of errors and the handling of special cases. Countless rare corner cases have to be handled sensibly and it has to be ensured that everything continues to run, even if something goes wrong: Whether it is a proposer or other validator calling in sick, being overloaded, or otherwise unavailable; when there is disagreement between proposer and other validators; when someone falls asleep during the elections; and many more. In the case of Ethereum, all are implemented in an automated fashion with appropriate penalties for the wrongdoers and rewards for the rest. Even under the most unfortunate combinations of errors, the system must always be able to continue to operate in a meaningful way.
Random numbers are a special weak spot in this game. They are needed e.g. for the random, fair selection of committee members or the distribution of proposer activities among the members. In a blockchain environment, however, randomness is anything but simple, and the seemingly trivial task is implemented in Ethereum-PoS with an elaborate “smart contract” with (1) stakeholders of their own, (2) even more cryptocurrency put at stake, and (3) carrots and sticks again with credits being distributed and collected. This random number smart contract, dubbed “RANDAO“, is one of the many tiny cogs in the whole process. (A separate future article is devoted to how smart contracts work.)
As we can see, the blockchain itself can only function if countless smart contracts constantly interact tightly and correctly, like a finely tuned clockwork. In turn, however, the proper functioning of the blockchain also depends on these smart contracts. Computer scientists try to avoid such cyclical dependencies in distributed systems at all costs, since they lead to more complexity and additional single points of failure.
If a proof-of-work machine fails (crash, power failure, network problem, DoS attack, …), its chance of making a profit may be reduced, but any capital earned before remains untouched.
With Proof of Stake, on the other hand, you want to “stake” as much of your assets as possible, since the profits are distributed in proportion to the capital staked. And if the computer fails at a bad point int time, your entire staked capital is gone.
Permissioned Blockchains
In addition to public, open (“permissionless”) blockchains based on the Bitcoin model, so-called private or “permissioned” blockchains are popular for closed user groups in business applications: To join the closed user group, traditional contracts with paper and signature are concluded. The members are then each allowed to integrate one computing node into this closed system.
These computer nodes then ensure that new entries are only added to the blockchain if they receive at least a ⅔-majority of approval. The system is thus immune to Byzantine errors, i.e. the system functions correctly as long as less than ⅓ of the nodes fail or act erroneously/maliciously.
In such a controlled environment, detecting or preventing dominant players is much easier than in a model where anyone can just join or leave at any time, no questions asked. In contrast, the permissioned model also lacks the universality that a public blockchain strives for.
Further, the permissioned model is mostly used for applications other than currencies, so it is typically not self-funded. The “miners” cannot be rewarded with something inherent in the system (e.g. a Bitcoin). Instead, somebody has to pay for the cost of the system (computers, electricity). That “somebody” is typically an organization formed specifically to operate the blockchain. But then the scheme is no longer fully decentralized: a centralized authority is funding it.
Therefore, the top few blocks are considered unsafe, often until about six blocks have been stacked above them, which takes an hour on average, but can take up to 6 hours (the waiting time only depends on dice throwing luck). Then the probability is high that an additional, longer chain will not suddenly appear somewhere.
This leads to further conclusions:
If there are multiple candidate blocks in play, each participant chooses one of the candidates as the basis for the subsequent block, regardless of the decisions of all other participants. (Typically, this is the first valid block he has seen).
Candidate blocks that the majority is not “happy” with remain in irrelevant side arms of the blockchain and are therefore ignored.
The “happiness” is defined by the rules in the program code and may change over time.
A transaction that only appears in one of these sidearms will not be recognized by most members. But if the transaction is basically valid, it should be included in one of the next regular blocks and thus eventually come to recognition.
Technical summary
The subchapter which tufts everything again nicely.
Millions of computers with a power consumption of 500 supercomputers or an industrialized country are constantly trying to solve a cryptographic puzzle. The puzzle difficult increases as more or faster computers take part in it, so that on average a new block is created every 10 minutes. Solving this cryptographic puzzle (“proof of work”) is intended to confirm that one is sufficiently interested to seriously commit to the principles of the blockchain, i.e. not to cheat.
However, if enough people do not agree with the rules (or cheat together), these rules become the de facto standard (“Code is Law“). This is how changes are implemented or spin-offs or exclusions occur.
The incentive to provide these computing resources, to bear the enormous power costs of 20-30 million francs a day, and to abide by the rules is based on the freshly minted cryptocurrency (currently around a quarter of a million francs every 10 minutes) created from nothing and the transaction fees, currently a few thousand francs per block. In turn, as we will also see later, there is also a desire to make the rules so that the income or value of the cryptocurrency becomes as high as possible.
Alternatives
The chapter where we review other Creations.
From the perspective of blockchain aficionados, the world was desolate and empty before Satoshi Nakamoto separated the world into light (blockchain and Bitcoin) and dark (everything else) on the first day and then retired; perhaps to watch the price development of his first million Bitcoins with relish.
But digital archaeologists, working tirelessly, have discovered that important approaches existed even before that:
Timestamps are especially useful when you want to prove the existence of a document at a certain point in time or to show that a document has not been modified since this point in time. Application areas are diverse and range from the patenting of inventions to copyright and use in forensics.
Since 2001, there have been distributed systems for tracking the development of program source code, in which the current state references the previous state by referencing its hash (the “checksum” mentioned repeatedly above), thus making backward substitutions of previous states impossible. The source code management system Git, published in 2005 and written for the distributed development of the Linux kernel, has become the dominant form of source code management for open source projects and is also indispensable for enterprise software development. As such, Git could arguably be described as the world’s most widely used blockchain solution. In contrast to the previously described systems, each developer can grow their private chain as they wish. Consensus is reached through (human) dialog. Multiple chains are not really a problem and when a new consensus is established, the work done in a distributed manner is not lost.
Blockchain Trilemma
The subchapter in which we learn the hard way that we get everything at the same time. Not all three at once The blockchain trilemma postulates that you can achieve a maximum of two of the three following implementation attributes simultaneously: security, speed and decentralization. There is no formal proof of this; however, until now, every blockchain project has run up against this barrier in some form or other.
Accordingly, any assertion to the contrary should be taken with extreme caution. Remember: “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Can it be a little less?
The subchapter where we see once again that if we want less, we get more. Everything becomes easier if you can omit one of them (see enumeration) From the point of view of functionality, we can also form a triangle:
Reaching a global consensus (everyone sees the same state in their books, the distributed ledger),
the complete absence of any trust between the participants; and
the desire for everyone to beable to enter their own data if they only meet certain minimum requirements; they do not have to go to a coordinator to do this.
Achieving all three goals simultaneously is very costly, as we have seen. If we could omit at least one of them, the problem would be much easier to solve. Let’s therefore look at them one by one:
Do we need global consensus?
Let’s divide the consensus problem into three cases: Private blockchains among contractors, public blockchains for traceability only, and public blockchains with cryptocurrencies. Are the expensive extras really necessary? The main use of private blockchains is for business partners to assure each other of certain things. According to the nature of things, these are mostly bilateral contracts. No global consensus is required for this, only the two business partners have to agree. This is much simpler and can be implemented much more efficiently than a global consensus. The complexity of the blockchain is therefore completely unnecessary or even harmful (slower response times, unnecessary publicity, costs, …).
In the case of a public blockchain on which a currency or other elements from the subsequent articles are built, global consensus seems important at first glance, since everyone should be informed about every account balance. But even this is not mandatory, as we will see with alternative payment solutions; local consensus or consistency (which is much simpler than consensus, as it only requires the absence of contradictions, instead of perfect agreement) is often enough. But more on this in the article on cryptocurrencies.
If public blockchains are only used as information repositories, as is the case with most blockchain-based public sector digitization projects, global consensus is entirely unnecessary. Integrity, transparency, and proof that the information has not been tampered with are quite sufficient, and these attributes are much easier to achieve. If I want to show that a certificate has not been altered, a digital signature from a trusted authority is sufficient. Although immutability is regularly cited as a goal, it often is not actually desirable. Errors such as typos or vandalism should be able to be corrected, and the right to be forgotten also has to be taken into account. That is, entries should be able to be corrected or deleted, but these changes should be traceable, either only by supervisory bodies or by the general public, depending on the actual application.
(The technically most expensive and most complicated of the additional options is the protection against using a single piece of currency multiple times in parallel, aka “double spending”. We only need it if the blockchain is to keep records of things that, like money, must only be spent once. More about this in the upcoming article on cryptocurrencies).
Do we need write permissions for everyone?
In many use cases, there are only a few authorized writers; ideally, they even belong to the same organization (commercial register, land registry, …). Alternatively, they are known to be responsible for only part of the data (hierarchy, federalism, …). I.e. even if consensus is necessary, it is clear who may contribute what to this consensus. Again, this leads to much simpler solutions.
Would you like a sprinkle of trust with this?
The huge effort that goes into proof-of-whatever and fully automated consensus is eliminated if there is at least a modicum of trust and external mechanisms (press, courts, …) can be used if this trust is abused.
Reality
The chapter where we revisit the original promises.
Let’s look again at the promises for which blockchain is being sold as a panacea.
A remark in advance: As the topics in the promises are only stated in very general terms, no detailed analysis can be made. Nevertheless, I have tried to make this more specific by adding my personal expectations from such a system as requirements.
The topics were analyzed according to eight criteria:
Whether they need integrity, traceability, immutability, or protection against double spending
Do we need something global or multilateral, or are much simpler bilateral agreements enough? (“More than two organizations”)
Is multilateral/global consensus necessary? (Consensus between two organisations is much easier; this alos applies if only consistency is required)
Whether this is a technical (or technically solvable) problem at all, or whether we are rather dealing with a Layer 8 problem here, i.e. the human desire to be involved in decision-making or to be allowed to go one’s own way.
Last but not least: Do I think the complete, globally uniform digitization of the respective process is a good idea at all (either in general or specifically by means of a blockchain).
The purely financial topics “financial transactions” and “money laundering” can be found in this table; nevertheless, they will be dealt with in the next article.
Topic
Integrity
Traceability
Immutability
>2 Orgs
Consensus
Double Spending
Layer 8
Idea
Financial transactions
✅
✅
✅
(✅)
(✅)
✅
(✅)
✅
Health care
✅
✅
•
✅
•
•
✅
😨
Identity management
✅
✅
•
•
•
•
✅
❓
Money laundering
✅
✅
•
•
•
•
✅
❓
Insurances
✅
✅
✅
(✅)
•
•
✅
❓
Supply Chain
✅
✅
•
(✅)
•
•
✅
✅
Mobility
✅
•
•
•
•
•
✅
❓
Energy markets
✅
✅
✅
•
•
•
✅
✅
Digital elections
✅
(❌)
✅
•
•
•
•
😨
Digital certificates
✅
•
•
(✅)
•
•
✅
❓
Let’s take a look at a few hot topics as examples:
Digital elections
The subchapter where we shudder again more about the idea of digitizing elections.
e-Voting was a hotly debated topic in Switzerland a few years ago, so here are just a few key points. Trust is essential when it comes to voting:
Therefore, we want integrity and immutability, but traceability on a large scale is already dangerous.
We do have a strict organization with hierarchy (federal, cantonal, municipal level) and not a horde of mutually distrusting individuals; thus, global consensus is ensured simply by passing the results to the next higher level of hierarchy (and verifying that they are included in the result).
This means that electronic voting may seem sensible, but it carries high risks of electoral fraud or (even worse) a loss of trust, and it offers hardly any time advantage (at least in Switzerland, the results are usually known a few hours after the polls close). Despite the intense discussion, no one has yet even begun to show how a blockchain could help there (beyond hand-waving general claims). On the contrary, I could well imagine that such systems would be the wet dream of any totalitarian regime.
Accordingly, I see no reason to think electronic blockchain voting is anything but a horrible idea.
Degree Certificates
The subchapter where only failing grades are given.
Third, this also raises the question of what blockchains would contribute to Degree Certificates:
In any school, several people are naturally involved in feeding data to the the certificate process and thus having the possibility to issue incorrect certificates directly or indirectly. False or bogus certificates introduced into the trusted process in this way would be indistinguishable from correct certificates, be it on a blockchain or not.
Consensus between schools is not necessary. Each may issue certificates for its graduates independently.
Even the decentralization of Blockchain is undermined: the verification of document authenticity only worked via the central gateway of the Bundesdruckerei.
The reason for the lack of universal acceptance of digital Degree Certificates is the lack of widespread recognition of a uniform procedure, not the complexity of its technical implementation. i.e., it is a typical Layer-8 problem.
Furthermore, essential basics of secure design of (not only web) applications were violated when implementing the application, throwing generally accepted design criteria such as use of few, simple tools, don’t trust any user input, … in the wind. These things should be considered and built in from the beginning, not only if you want to build a particularly trustworthy application.
None of the 16 blockchains is reliably expected to continue to function and be secure in the future, i.e., to be able to play its primary role as a persistent, trustworthy storage.
Too many special interests were represented in the consortium: Everyone wanted to push “their” blockchain.
Neither speaks to confidence in blockchains and their proponents.
(Incidentally, this project also provides another frightening example of how technical implementations often completely ignore the needs of an important user group. The students, for example, who should certainly be important beneficiaries of this technology, were expecting the project to culminate in something entirely different: timely feedback if their performance is unsatisfactory and what they can do about it. This has nothing whatsoever to do with digital signatures on diplomas.)
Supply chain 1: Provenance/origin
The subchapter in which we repeat ourselves again. On purpose.
Whether the certificates or the products (or both) are replaced on the delivery route cannot be checked digitally (the Oracle Problem again).
Once again, no technical features are required that extend beyond simple bookkeeping or digital signatures.
In both cases, the blockchain is not the solution, only trust (and control) can help. Yes, this requires human contact and the odd on-site visit; but anything else is nothing more than an open invitation to fraud. Deal with it.
Supply Chain 2: Contracting
The subchapter where only standard processes help.
The second promise around supply chains is easier and faster formation of contracts. A contract is only really important when the contracting parties disagree. Then it must be watertight, with clear rules on when the contractual obligations are deemed to have been provided and what dispute resolution mechanisms are accepted. As long as all is sunshine and roses, a rough definition of the respective duties is more than sufficient.
A contract in a blockchain (and even more so, as we will see, a smart contract) must also be suitable for those bad conditions. A real speed advantage only arises if one can rely on the cooperation of the counterparty (common interest, trust, small risk, …) or can reuse elements from standardized contracts.
Evaluation
The chapter in which we look back disillusioned.
Here is a brief summary of the preceding pages: Misapplied security mechanisms, including blockchain, are a daunting obstacle for the good guys, but no protection against the bad guys. (Image source unknown)
Blockchains are attributed all sorts of properties, but these are rarely justified in concrete terms. On the contrary, it seems as if there are no reasons at all to reduce cloudiness in requirements, complexity in systems, or lack of structure in explanations.
Whenever you implement a process, you should know in advance which technical features you really need. Clarity about your goals and essential requirements simplifies the implementation and reduces the resource consumption of the resulting solution; often massively.
The technology itself is almost trivial; but by assuming complex distributed dependencies and refusing to include even an inkling of trust, complex and inefficient solutions result.
The electricity costs for each of the major blockchains are at least on the order 20 million francs per day, and rising. Direct refinancing is not possible and can only be based on hope (and that in a system that absolutely tries to condemn trust!).
By building up (sometimes exorbitant) financial incentives, human greed is excessively activated and other virtues fall into disuse.
Alternative approaches (such as proof of stake) rely too much on additional complexity, the side effects of which are hardly foreseeable. Among other things, it seems possible that targeted network attacks on proof-of-stake participants could prove very lucrative financially for the attacker.
For many applications targeted by blockchain claims, a combination of audit logs, digital signatures, and time stamps are sufficient. They are also easier to implement and cheaper in almost all aspects.
If an application is to be secure, this must include all processes and participants, especially the users. Complexity and intransparency often lead to countermeasures by the users, which in turn can endanger the entire system.
The ill-considered use of security mechanisms (not only blockchains) only leads to all honest participants being constantly demotivated in their daily work by seemingly pointless obstacles, while bad guys hardly have any additional effort or, on the contrary, even have it easier. And that should never be the purpose of digitization.
Hardly any technology that is sold as magic is as easy to use as magic. On the contrary, the lack of understanding caused by magic might hold even greater hidden dangers, a familiar theme in fairy tales.
Digitization cannot be solved simply by using technology (magical or not). The processes and people involved in a process are at least as important.
Often, a pinch of trust simplifies the solution massively. But all parties involved have to earn it.
The blockchain was created as a solution to a very specific, particularly complex problem: digital currency trying to mimic paper money, that is, anonymous yet hard-to-forge digital objects. For this problem, it may be a good solution when applied directly. For all other processes, it is massive over-engineering and even small simplifications to the assumptions can lead to much more efficient solutions. This is also illustrated by the (inherently simplifying) diagram on the right.
For every possible digitization approach, dozens of proposals exist for the use of blockchains. However, despite millions of dollars of investment in more than a decade, there is a lack of widely publicized recipes for success that leverage the specific properties of blockchains. Several aspects and considerations behind the concept of blockchain are inspiring and promising, but these inspirations have not yet been successfully implemented. Perhaps this is because blockchain really does not add value outside of the cryptocurrency environment; or perhaps it is because there has been a lack of understanding of how it works. I hope to have contributed something to this understanding and would be happy to hear about successful (but also unsuccessful) digitization projects.
Questions
The chapter to go.
Here are some questions that help to structure the digitization of a data-centric business process. If this process is to be specifically digitized by means of blockchain, consensus on the answers between all parties involved (“stakeholders“) is a must before starting the discussion “Blockchain? If yes, how?” should be started. I hope these questions support as many projects as possible in dealing with their data more clearly!
— — — — ✀ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Data lifecycle questionnaire
Data: Which data with which properties (structure, dependencies, data protection) are we talking about exactly?
Structure: What are the format, structure and dependencies of the data?
Criteria: Are integrity, traceability, immutability, confidentiality, or global consensus necessary?
Input: What are the data sources? How does the data get into the system?
Quality: How is the quality (correctness, uniformity, authenticity, completeness, …) of the incoming data ensured?
Error culture: What can/should/must happen if erroneous data (intentionally or unintentionally) creeps in?
Format changes: How should future changes to the structure or format of data be handled?
Data protection: How should the right to correction or deletion of personal data be implemented?
Processing: What processing steps should be performed on this data?
Trust: Is lasting mistrust between the actors to be expected? Can this mistrust be managed through hierarchies or (work) contracts?
Thomas Schwendener: Blockchain Report, Inside IT. 5-part series, published between February 8 and 24, 2022. Information on the state of blockchain and blockchain projects in Switzerland (German).
Stephen Diehl et al: Making Sense of Crypto & Web3, Life Itself Labs, 2022. Encyclopedia with explanations and podcasts on blockchain.
David S. Rosenthal: EE380 Talk, February 9, 2022. Transcript (and video) of his Stanford University talk on the blockchain ecosystem (English).
Petr Hudeček and Michal Pokorný: The Deadlock Empire, 2016-2021. A game for budding computer scientists where you experience trace amounts of PoS complexity firsthand and have to make sure that multiple pieces of code running simultaneously do not interfere with each other.
Hardly a day goes by without someone demanding that I listen to their explanation of their blockchain idea. A lot of times, I listen. Look, a lot of people I consider to be smart and thoughtful are…
Vorsicht: Dieser Artikel widerspiegelt mein Verständnis. Ich habe versucht, dies unabhängig überprüfen zu lassen, habe jedoch kein Feedback erhalten. Ich freue mich über allfällige Bestätigungen/Korrekturen! Bei PoH sind die Hashes nicht mehr parallelisierbarPoH könnte man auch als lückenhafte Mini-Blockchain ansehen Einen dritten Ansatz neben Proof of Work und Proof of Stake verfolgt die Blockchain Solana. Deren Mechanismus, «Proof of History» (PoH), könnte in etwa mit «Beweis verstrichener Zeit» übersetzt werden und ist eine Art vereinfachter Zeitstempel. Bei Proof of Work werden Abermillionen von Hashes gleichzeitig parallel berechnet, bis ein gemeinsamer Block gefunden wird. Bei PoH erzeugt jeder Rechenknoten so schnell Blöcke hintereinander, wie er kann, so als ob er jedes Mal eine Eins gewürfelt hätte. Aber nur Blöcke, die auch eine Transaktion beinhalten, werden auch abgespeichert und kommuniziert. In regelmässigen Abständen werden dann diese Teilblockchains miteinander verknüpft.
Im Gegensatz zu PoW hat keiner der Rechenknoten einen Anreiz, mehr als einen Prozessor gleichzeitig mit Hashberechnungen zu beschäftigen, weil bei PoH jede Hashberechnung erst gestartet werden kann, wenn die vorhergehende abgeschlossen ist. Der Druck zu mehr Energie entfällt damit. Aber es fehlen auch unabhängige Analysen zur Sicherheit dieses Blockchain-Mechanismus; das verwendete Konsensmodell ist eigentlich nur für geschlossene Benutzergruppen vorgesehen (siehe nächsten Abschnitt).
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Blockchain, Kryptowährungen, Smart Contracts, Web3 und NFTs sind zur Zeit in aller Munde. Fast jeder hat dazu eine Meinung, aber kaum jemand versteht die
The Incredible Inconvenience of the Neurodivergent to the “Science of Learning”: You’ll Never See Us Through Your Complexity Controls
Neurodivergent people are treated as noise to be filtered out in most studies supporting the “science of learning”.
The thing is, research like this — serious scientific research into Autism — has historically treated the subjective experiences of its subjects as noise to be filtered out. They all think they can accurately read our emotions if they need to and so don’t need to ask us.
The varied and dynamic nature of learning environments – too many variables to isolate one out, the way norm-referencing is leveraged to discount outliers, and the lack of applicable research on neurodiverse students – necessitates
... mehr anzeigen
The Incredible Inconvenience of the Neurodivergent to the “Science of Learning”: You’ll Never See Us Through Your Complexity Controls
Neurodivergent people are treated as noise to be filtered out in most studies supporting the “science of learning”.
The thing is, research like this — serious scientific research into Autism — has historically treated the subjective experiences of its subjects as noise to be filtered out. They all think they can accurately read our emotions if they need to and so don’t need to ask us.
The varied and dynamic nature of learning environments – too many variables to isolate one out, the way norm-referencing is leveraged to discount outliers, and the lack of applicable research on neurodiverse students – necessitates a more flexible and holistic approach.
Our needs and ways of being are deemed too inconvenient to consider.
Which is why the Disability Industry, the SpEd/SEN leadership, and so many groups of frustrated middle-class parents do not, and may not ever understand people with disabilities. Those groups want us to be like them, or want to sell parents and schools “cures” that will make us be like them. They want me to read the way they do, and to read as fast and as “accurately” (which refers to grabbing plot points, nothing else) as they do. They want me to sit still and focus “on the task at hand” the way they do. They want me to move as they do. Think the way they do. Speak the way they do. Understand the world the way they do. All, of course, in pursuit of capitalist conformity and efficiency. (see Stimpunks for the best deep dives into these issues.)
Kids who are different are told every day, every hour, often every minute, by the most well-meaning people, that they are “born wrong” and require repair. And yes, accommodating our differences is inconvenient, it does create costs and work for those with power, but human diversity and neurodiversity, just like every kind of diversity, strengthens every ecosystem.
And believing that, and acting as if you believe it, is the only humane path.
This review, which includes 90 studies conducted in 21 countries, reveals that the majority (92%) did not consider neurodiversity as a potential factor influencing cognitive load in online learning.
Our findings reveal a major research gap, as most studies overlook the distinct neurocognitive profiles of neurodivergent students. Notably, ADHD and ASD learners may exhibit unique cognitive load responses, suggesting that established cognitive load theories and instructional design guidelines might not uniformly be applicable in neurodiverse classrooms. Lastly, inconsistent methodologies in measuring cognitive load in online learning point to the need for more uniform research approaches. Future research should prioritise creating adaptive, inclusive online learning environments that respect and accommodate cognitive differences, which will not only benefit neurodivergent students but also enhance the online learning experience for all students.
It is past time to consider neurodiversity. Neuroscience without neurodiversity is often misguided and harmful.
The multimedia principle is the idea from multimedia theory that providing both words (usually spoken) accompanied by images supports learning by maximizing working memory. I’m not an expert by any means on this area of research, but It is quite interesting to think that widely accepted evidence-based principles on instructional design/learning like multimedia theory have not been confirmed for very common disability experiences such as dyslexia.
Overall, it really does seem that we are just beginning to consider and test basic “science of learning” principles with attention to neurodiversity. Indeed, as these authors note, “Research on multimedia learning typically assumes that learning outcomes are the result of the design of materials; however, an equally important but less studied consideration is the role individual differences play.”
I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with phrases like “how learning works,” when it is probably more accurate to say “how learning works for many people”
The complexity control of behaviorism and the science of learning has utterly failed us.
Our students are not surgically modified dogs nor are they pigeons in operant conditioning chambers attempting to learn nonsense words. No child enters a classroom devoid of emotion, interest, or prior knowledge. Owing to the key distinctions between the controlled laboratory and the living classroom, there simply may be no connection between what is taught and what is learned; or between the educational intervention and the desired outcome. This is why, in pedagogies centered on instruction drawn from the narrow view of “The Science of Learning,” behaviorism is a complexity control meant to reduce the number of possible variables between instruction and assessment; to better reproduce the uncomplicated relationship between variables in the Skinner Box. We know from listening to students themselves that there has been a persistent crisis in schools, even before COVID: students ask fewer questions the longer they remain in school, engagement plummets alongside mental health, and absenteeism surges. Ultimately, any science of learning matters far less than its implementation. Maintaining fidelity to what happened in, say, Pavlov’s lab matters significantly less if the practices derived from his work contribute to stress, anxiety, and alienation in students.
If the perfect education system requires that you dehumanize the people in it — adults and kids alike — that’s not a system that “works” by most metrics worth caring about.The kids in our schools have to be viewed as more than behaviorist subjects to be acted upon. If we at least admit that much, then the business of teaching gets far more complicated. Suddenly there are a number of other factors we must tend to that matter a great deal. I’ll quote again from apparent “pseudoscientist” Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, “As human beings, feeling alive means feeling alive in a body but also feeling alive in a society, in a culture; being loved, being part of a group, being accepted, and feeling purposeful.” These are self-evident truths that we are finally beginning to explore the neurobiological basis for in ways that shatter many previous models of the brain that still hold cultural sway.
Stimpunks do a great job reinforcing this through a Neurodiversity lens and are some of the few ND advocates on here who have wonderful language to capture the needed complexities for understanding each human, rather than categorizing humans into buckets.
As the host mentions in this excellent conversation, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang’s work essentially provides the neurobiological basis for progressive education. Excerpted below are selected quotes from Mary Helen Immordino-Yang’s work.
«The blockchain can’t lie to you, but you can lie to the blockchain.» (Die Blockchain kann dich vielleicht nicht anlügen [naja…], aber du kannst sie jederzeit belügen.)
Zum Dritten stellt sich auch hier die Frage, was denn Blockchains zur Zeugnisausstellung beitragen würden:
In jeder Schule hätten naturgemäss mehrere Personen die Möglichkeit, direkt oder indirekt falsche Zeugnisse erstellen zu lassen. So in den vertrauenswürdigen Prozess eingebrachte falsche Zeugnisse wären von korrekten Zeugnissen in nichts zu unterscheiden, Blockchain hin oder her.
Konsens zwischen den Schulen ist nicht notwendig. Jede darf für seine Absolventinnen eigenständig Zeugnisse ausstellen.
Sogar die Dezentralität von Blockchain wird ausgehebelt: Die Verifikation der Dokumentenechtheit funktionierte nur über den zentralen Gateway der Bundesdruckerei.
Die Ursache liegt im Fehlen der breiten Anerkennung eines einheitlichen Verfahrens, nicht an der Komplexität seiner technischen Umsetzung.
Darüber hinaus wurden essenzielle Grundlagen des sicheren Designs von (nicht nur Web-)Anwendungen in den Wind geschlagen: Nutzung von wenigen, einfachen Werkzeugen, Vertraue keinen Nutzereingaben, …; Dinge, die man von Anfang berücksichtigen und einbauen sollte, nicht nur, wenn man eine besonders vertrauenswürdige Anwendung bauen will.
(Im Übrigen liefert dieses Projekt auch ein weiteres erschreckendes Beispiel, dass technische Umsetzungen häufig völlig an den Bedürfnissen einer wichtigen Nutzergruppe vorbei gehen. So erhoffen sich die Schülerinnen, sicher wichtige Nutzniesser dieser Technik, etwas ganz Anderes: Diese erwarten nämlich vor allem rechtzeitiges Feedback, wenn ihre Leistungen ungenügend seien und was sie dagegen tun könnten. Das hat rein gar nichts mit digitalen Signaturen auf Abschlusszeugnissen zu tun.)
Nachtrag 2024-10-14
Hier einige Punkte, die im Rahmen einer Online-Diskussion aufkamen und hier noch nicht (so klar) drin stehen:
Nicht immer sollen alle Aktivitäten öffentlich einsehbar sein. Dahinter müssen nicht notwendigerweise Betrugsabsichten stecken, sondern durchaus auch berechtigte Interessen im Rahmen der anerkannten Gesetze.
Die Existenz der oben angesprochenen Personen, welche «direkt oder indirekt falsche Zeugnisse ausstellen» können, zeigt auf, dass menschliche Schwächen wie Bestechung und Korruption durch Technologie nicht ausgemerzt werden können. (Übrigens ein Beispiel für das Orakel-Problem der Blockchains.)
Bei Namensänderungen kann es sinnvoll und erwünscht sein, Zeugnisse nachträglich auf den neuen Namen anzupassen. (Neben Heirat auch aufgrund von anerkannten Gründen des Identitätswechsels, beispielsweise (politischer) Verfolgung oder beim Ablegen des Deadnames.)
Andere angeblich geeignete Anwendungsbereiche für Blockchain-Lösungen beinhalten Immobilien und das Grundbuch. Auch hier gibt es Gründe, weshalb nicht alle Änderungen öffentlich sein sollten und Ineffizienz auch gut sein kann (manchmal).
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Ihren NFT-Selbstversuch schliesst Susanna Petrin mit einer Vision des Lebens nach der Zerstörung unserer Welt: Im Metaversum unsere NFTs bewundernd. Ich… NFT: Gefahr statt Chance weiterlesen
Oftmals hört man Behauptungen über Anwendungszwecke von Blockchain ohne tiefere Überlegungen. Hier ist ein kompaktes, zitierbares Destillat aus «Per Anhalter durch… Blockchain in aller Kürze weiterlesen
Blockchain ist seit über 10 Jahren ganz oben auf der Hype-Hitparade und wird als magische Lösung für alle Digitalisierungsprobleme gehandelt. Aber… Per Anhalter durch die Blockchain weiterlesen
In Deutschland ist soeben ein Projekt zur Blockchainisierung der Schulzeugnisse nach über einer Million € ergebnislos eingestampft worden. Was können wir… Sollen Zeugnisse in die Blockchain? weiterlesen
The Blockchain, a cryptographically linked list with additional restrictions, is often touted to be the most significant innovation towards democratization of the digital landscape, especially the Internet. However, the ideas did not come out of thin air, but have ancestors and relatives. An attempt at technological genealogy.
The timestamping act proper was to be performed by a trusted third party, the Time-Stamping Service (TSS), using standard digital signatures. Cryptographically, a timestamp is indistinguishable from a digital signature; the key difference lies in the semantics:
A conventional digital signature is used to attest authorship of or agreement with the signed contents. Similar to pen and paper signatures, most digital signatures include the date and time at which the signing took place, as ancillary information.
In a timestamp, on the other hand, the date and time is the primary information. It can (and, for some protocols, does) use the same algorithms and message formats as digital signatures above. The signature itself does not imply the signer’s endorsement of the contents; it only implies that any document which matches the timestamp, already existed at that time (assuming the security of the underlying cryptographic algorithms). An example of such a timestamping protocol is outlined in RFC 3161 (2001).
Haber and Stornetta were unhappy to have to completely trust the TSS to not issue timestamps for anything else than the current time, especially their ability at backdating documents, so they proposed two distributed mechanisms which could be used to ascertain (or refute) the honesty of the TSS.
One of the mechanisms would today probably be described as a Distributed Ledger, one of the main properties of blockchains. Unlike blockchains, where the entire database is replicated, they proposed an optimization: Anybody requesting a timestamp would be given information about the next k timestamped documents. This information included the sequence number of the timestamp, the hash of the document, and the ID of the requestor.
As a timestamping client, it was in your own best interest to safeguard this information in addition to the actual timestamp itself. In case of a dispute, you could produce these k additional records and upon contacting their requestors, they would be able to ascertain the fact that your document was timestamped before theirs.
In essence, we have a distributed ledger where everyone has the incentive to store some small piece of information which can be used in their interest.
PGP Digital Timestamping Service (1995)
In 1995, Matthew Richardson created the PGP Digital Timestamping Service. At this time, email was still one of the main machine-to-machine (M2M) interfaces, as there were still hosts without always-on connectivity. Therefore, it was natural to use email as the interface. One of the modes was (and still is today) to send a document or hash thereof to the stamper services’ email address. A few minutes later, a PGP-digitally-signed version of your submission is returned, including a timestamp and a monotonic sequence number.
Richardson did not want to put the burden of safekeeping to the end user. Instead, his system creates daily and weekly summaries of the timestamps it issued, allowing anyone to double-check the timestamps issued against these lists.
For many years, the weekly summaries were also posted to the Usenet group [url=https://groups.google.com/g/comp.security.pgp.announce]comp.security.pgp.announce[/url], which—like most “announce”-Newsgroups—would be automatically archived by many servers around the world.
Software development, especially in teams, have used version control software since the 1970s to keep track of parallel development, experiments, bug fixes, or to determine how bugs got introduced into the system. Traditionally, this has been based on version numbers and central repositories, neither of which worked well when trying to create derivative works: The need for distributed version control systems (DVCS) was born.
In 2001, the first such system, GNU arch, was created. However, DVCSes only really became popular after the introduction of git and it’s use in Linux kernel development in 2005.
DVCS enable every developer to keep a local copy of (part of) the source code and create modifications, some of them which might later be shared with other developers, including the original ones.
Instead of version numbers, which cannot be easily kept unique in such a distributed setting, unique hashes were used to identify the versions. In Git, these hashes are derived from the parent’s hash (or hashes, in case of a merge; see image to the right), the new contents, as well as information about who changed what when and why. The committed version can also contain a PGP signature to authenticate the changes.
Again, we have a cryptographically linked chain (actually, Directed Acyclic Graph, DAG), potentially with signatures, and a protocol to efficiently distribute changes. This again can be used to create a public record.
In addition (and unlike the Blockchain approach which we will see below), diverging changes are common and a process (“merge”) exists to combine the work done in each branch and not waste the efforts invested. This merge can often be done automatically.
Blockchain (2008)
The term Blockchain became known in 2008, born as a distributed ledger of pseudonymous financial transactions in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. As in Git, each block includes the hash of its predecessor as a backward link (i.e., opposite to the logical ordering shown by the arrows in the image to the right, where time flows down).
To avoid blocks being chained randomly, a proof of work (PoW) is required: Only blocks containing a solution to a cryptographic puzzle will be considered as candidate blocks; the complexity of that puzzle is regularly adjusted to match the computational power in the network, keeping the average block creation (aka “mining”) rate at roughly 1 every 10 minutes.
If multiple candidate blocks are available as potential parents, only one is chosen; the work done in different branches is thrown away, even if these blocks/branches do not contain conflicting transactions.
The key to Bitcoin’s success was that apparent democratization through the proof of work. However, concerns about wasting energy have resulted in alternate designs, notably
private blockchains, where only a select set of participants are allowed to maintain blocks and new blocks are accepted based on algorithms related to majority voting.
In the former case, PoS, also called “plutocracy” by some, the “democracy” patina is diluted even further.
In the latter case, depending on the use case, often a much simpler mechanism may be used, resulting in easier-to-maintain systems. However, often the apparent sexyness of the “Blockchain” name is more important. For example, when only a single organization controls the entire blockchain, this reverts back to the case of a single TSS, which Haber and Stornetta worked hard to avoid, as there is no guarantee that the system works as advertised. Even if it does, the lack of transparency, functionality, and battle-testing may even be much less than what is readily available with Git and friends. On the right-hand side, you find a rendering of the qualitative complexity of different mechanisms that are embodied in the Bitcoin Blockchain. Integrity and transparency, the two main goals often associated with Blockchain usage, are very easy to fulfill. The incremental cost of immutability (or tamper-evidence) on top of these two is small. Itis provably impossible to achieve perfect Consensus in asynchronous distributed systems such as the Internet; however, “good enough” approximations can be achieved. Preventing double-spending of cryptocurrency is even harder. In many use cases, the easy three are enough, maybe with a sprinkle of very controlled consensus. Going for the big bubble is therefore mostly wasting resources and adding unnecessary complexity or preventing simple fixes in case of errors.
the fear, that transaction costs might explode, or
the wish of project participants to promote their respective pet solutions.
“Blockchain” is a heavily overloaded (and thus diluted) term. In its original form, it promised transparency and immutability, achieving that at huge amounts of energy wasted by people typically driven by greed. In what is sold to corporate users, it is often (1) unnecessarily complicated and error-prone, (2) not adapted to the actual problem, or (3) just little more than what Git and friends readily provide, but costly relabeled with a sexy buzzword.
Zeitgitter (2019)
As explained above, often all that is needed is
integrity,
transparency,
immutability (or tamper-evidence), and
maybe a limited, well-defined form of consensus.
This is achievable with simple timestamping. With the know-how from Haber-Stornetta, the PGP Digital Timestamping Service, and Git in mind, we created the open-source solution Zeitgitter.
The name comes from the German mental health term Zeitgitterstörung, which translates to confusion of the sense of time or chronotaraxis. So, Zeitgitter itself (without Störung, which is the confusion part) might be translated as the sense of time. It also includes Gitter, which means grid and indicates that the different timestampers are interwoven, mutually interlocking each other into having to say the truth about their timestamps.
The basic design is as follows: Each timestamping server issues digital signatures on content stored in Git repositories and stores proof of this timestamping in a Git repository of its own. In regular intervals, the Zeitgitter timestamping servers cross-timestamp each other, preventing backdating timestamps by more than a short interval.
Basic integration is trivial: Just call [url=https://pypi.org/project/git-timestamp/]git timestamp[/url] whenever you want your standard Git repository timestamped (or automate the process). This easily fits in with the Git ecosystem and automated timestamping is easy.
In contrast to Blockchain-based approaches, already an inexpensive Raspberry Pi can issue several million timestamps per day, with annual cost for device, power, and Internet access being on the order of just a few €/$/CHF, avoiding the need for massive monetary returns.
PGP-based Zeitgitter results in normal signed objects in the repository. Therefore, timestamps can be stored, presented, verified, or propagated like ordinary Git objects; fully decentralized. Blockchain-based timestamping approaches, however, require a centralized gatekeeper to verify or help verify the timestamp; i.e., the timestamp is not self-contained.
Zeitgitter addresses the most common need, namely timestamping, to efficiently ascertain integrity, transparency, and detect tampering. When it comes to issuing timestamps, the requirements for global consensus are very easy to satisfy, unlike many other applications.
If a single authority would like to add these three features, this is all of Blockchain that is needed.
Summary
Most often, “Blockchain” is sold as the solution for all your problems around Digitalisation of your business or administration. However, often the problems lie deeper: The lack of defined processes, missing standardized interchange formats, or even just not knowing well enough what the real goals of the entire digitalisation project should be.
These all-too-common problems resulted in the adage,
If you think that you need a Blockchain: By the time that you are ready to use it, you probably don’t need it anymore.
Even if some of the features are actually required, probably all that you need is timestamping, which can be much more easily achieved using RFC 3161 (centralized) timestamping protocol or Zeitgitter as a distributed version.
An extended version of this article, with a slightly different focus, will be presented in German at DigiGes Winterkongress 2022.
Updates
2022-03-06: At the beginning of the Haber/Stornetta section, elaborated on the relationship between digital signatures and timestamps (and mentioned RFC 3161).
This is the time to catch up on what you missed during the year. For some, it is meeting the family. For others, doing snowsports. For even others, it is cuddling up and reading. This is an article for the latter.
As an avid reader, you know my arguments that neither NFT nor smart contracts live up to their promises, and that the blockchain underneath is also more fragile and has a worse cost-benefit ratio than most believe. Similarly, I also claim the same for the metaverses built on top of them all. And that the… Read more: NFTs are unethical
Bureaucracy and inefficiency are frowned upon, often rightly so. But they also have their good sides: Properly applied, they ensure reliability and legal certainty. Blockchain disciples want to “improve” bureaucracy-ridden processes, but achieve the opposite. Two examples:
Yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released its indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried. It details the financial entanglements of FTX, Alameda Research and more than a hundred other companies and individuals. We have tried to disentangle these allegations somewhat for you.
Drew Austin raises an important question in Wired: How should we deal with our accumulated personal data? How can we get from randomly hoarding to selection and preservation? And why does his proposed solution of Web3 not work out? A few analytical thoughts.
Pro Senectute beider Basel, a foundation to help the elderly around Basel, launched its NFT project last week and already informed about its Metaverse commitment beforehand. According to a media release, Michael Harr, managing director of the 15-million Basel-based company, wants to use the purchase of these “properties” in a “central location” in two online… Read more: Rejuvenation for Pro Senectute through NFT and Metaverse?
Mit nicht weniger als fünf Blockchains sollte sichergestellt werden, dass der digitale Impfnachweis in Deutschland fälschungssicher ist. Der Plan sorgte für Spott und Kritik – nun kommt alles anders.
Der gesamte Kryptobereich ist seit Monaten ein Jenga-Stapel miteinander verbundener Zeitbomben, der immer stärker voneinander abhängt, da sich die betroffenen Unternehmen auf ständig neue Weise gegenseitig stützen.
Bei welchem Unternehmen es zuerst knallte, war eine Frage von Kleinigkeiten, im Gegensatz dazu, dass es offensichtlich zu einem Knall kommen würde. Die anderen Blöcke im Jenga-Stapel werden es schwer haben, nicht nachzuziehen.
Hier ist ein kurzer praktischer Leitfaden für den Krypto-Crash – die systemischen Risiken, die ab Juni 2022 im Spiel sind. Sobald Bitcoin unter 20’000 Dollar rutscht, können wir das offiziell als das Ende der Blase von 2021 bezeichnen.
TerraUSD-Zusammenbruch – Da Stablecoins – Ersatz für Dollar – nicht reguliert sind, wissen wir nicht, was hinter ihnen steht. TerraUSD (UST) sollte 18 Milliarden Dollar repräsentieren … abgesichert durch rein gar nichts. UST stürzte ab und startete eine Kaskade. [David Gerard; Foreign Policy; Chainalysis Report]
Celsius bricht zusammen – Celsius war der grösste Krypto-Kreditgeber in diesem Bereich und versprach lächerlich hohe Renditen aus nicht fassbaren Quellen. Es war nur eine Frage der Zeit, bevor dieser Ponzi zusammenbrach. Wir haben gestern über die unvermeidliche Implosion von Celsius geschrieben. [David Gerard]
Entlassungen an den Exchanges – Coinbase, Gemini, Crypto.com und BlockFi haben Entlassungen von Mitarbeitern angekündigt. Krypto-Exchanges („Börsen“) verdienen Geld mit dem Handel. In einem Bärenmarkt handeln weniger Menschen, also gehen die Gewinne zurück. Vor allem Coinbase lebte in Saus und Braus, als gäbe es kein Morgen. Die Realität ist eine bittere Pille. [Bloomberg; Gemini; The Verge]
Aktienkurse fallen – Coinbase $COIN, das jetzt bei 50 Dollar pro Aktie gehandelt wird, hat seit dem Börsengang im Juni 2021 80 % seines Wertes verloren. Das Unternehmen war überhyped und überbewertet.
US-Krypto-Mining-Aktien sind alle im Minus – Bitfarms ($BITF), Hut 8 Mining ($HUT), Bit Digital ($BTBT), Canaan ($CAN) und Riot Blockchain ($RIOT). Die Miner haben sich so schnell wie möglich Geld geliehen und können die Kredite nur schwer zurückzahlen, weil Bitcoin gefallen ist.
Entflechtung („UnTethering“)
Der Krypto-Handel braucht einen Dollar-Ersatz – daher der Aufstieg von UST, auch wenn seine Behauptungen über die algorithmische Unterstützung buchstäblich keinen Sinn ergaben. Was sind die anderen Optionen?
Tether – Seit 2017 beobachten wir Tether genau, den beliebtesten und meistgenutzten Stablecoin. Probleme bei Tether könnten das gesamte Kartenhaus des Kryptomarktes zum Einsturz bringen.
Tether ging mit einer Emission von 4 Milliarden USDT in das Jahr 2020, und jetzt schwimmen 72 Milliarden USDT auf den Kryptomärkten herum. Mit Stand vom 11. Mai behauptete Tether, dass seine Reserven 83 Mrd. USD umfassen, aber diese Zahl ist im letzten Monat um mehrere Milliarden angeblicher „Dollar“ gesunken. Es gibt keine Beweise dafür, dass 10,5 Milliarden Dollar in tatsächlichen Dollars irgendwo hingeflossen sind, auch nicht „10,5 Milliarden Dollar“ in Kryptos.
Tether ist eng mit dem gesamten Krypto-Casino verflochten. Tether investiert in viele andere Kryptounternehmen – das Unternehmen war zum Beispiel ein Investor von Celsius. Tether half auch Sam Bankman-Frieds FTX-Börse beim Start, und FTX ist ein wichtiger Tether-Kunde.
Das grosse Problem von Tether sind die scharfen Blicke der Regulierungsbehörden und mögliche rechtliche Schritte des Justizministeriums. Wir gehen davon aus, dass Tether das gleiche Schicksal ereilen wird wie Liberty Reserve. Aber das haben wir schon 2017 gesagt. Nate Anderson von Hindenburg Research sagte, er rechne fest damit, dass die Tether-Führungskräfte dieses Jahr in Handschellen beenden würden.
Andere Stablecoins – Der USDC (54 Milliarden) von Jeremy Allaire und Circle behauptet, dass er durch einige echte Dollar und US-Staatsanleihen gedeckt sei, und nur wenige Geheimzutaten. Der USDP von Paxos (1 Milliarde) behauptet, mit Bargeld und Staatsanleihen unterlegt zu sein. BUSD (18 Milliarden) von Paxos und Binance gibt Bargeld, Staatsanleihen und Geldmarktfonds an.
Keine dieser Reserven ist jemals geprüft worden – die Unternehmen veröffentlichen nur Momentaufnahmen, aber niemand prüft den Nachweis der Reserven. Die Holdinggesellschaften bemühen sich sehr, den Eindruck zu erwecken, dass die Reserven einer eingehenden Prüfung unterzogen wurden. Circle behauptet, dass die Prüfung von Circle als eine Prüfung der USDC-Reserve gilt. Das ist natürlich nicht der Fall.
Alle diese Stablecoins haben eine Historie von Rückkäufen, was das Vertrauen in den Markt stärkt und den Eindruck erweckt, dass diese Dinge so gut wie Dollar seien. Das sind sie aber nicht.
Ein Ansturm auf diese Reserven könnte immer noch Probleme verursachen – und die Regulierungsbehörden tendieren zu einer vollständigen bankenähnlichen Regulierung.
Stimmung
Es gibt keinen fundamentalen Grund dafür, dass eine Kryptowährung zu einem bestimmten Preis gehandelt wird. Die Stimmung der Anleger ist alles. Wenn der Markt verängstigt ist, treten neue Probleme auf den Plan, wie z.B.:
Verlust des Marktvertrauens – Die Stimmung wurde durch den Terra-Crash sichtlich erschüttert, und es gibt keinen Grund, dass sie zurückkehrt. Es müsste schon etwas Bemerkenswertes geschehen, um dem Markt neues Vertrauen zu geben, dass schon wieder alles gut werde.
Regulierung – Das US-Finanzministerium und die Federal Reserve waren sich des spektakulären Zusammenbruchs der UST sehr wohl bewusst. Gerüchten zufolge haben sie bei den US-Banken angerufen und sie angewiesen, alles, was mit Kryptowährungen zu tun hat, besonders genau zu prüfen. Was die Regulierungsbehörden nicht schlafen lässt, ist die Angst vor einer weiteren Finanzkrise wie 2008, und sie werden auf keinen Fall zulassen, dass die Krypto-Trottel ein solches Ereignis verursachen.
GBTC – Es ist noch nicht genug über den Bitcoin Trust von Grayscale gesagt worden und darüber, wie er zum Anstieg und nun zum Fall des Bitcoin-Preises beigetragen hat. GBTC hält etwa 3,4 Prozent der weltweiten Bitcoin.
Seit Beginn von 2020 wurden GBTC-Anteile bis 2021 auf den Sekundärmärkten mit einem Aufschlag gegenüber Bitcoin gehandelt. Dies ermöglichte eine Arbitrage, durch die Bitcoin im Wert von Milliarden Dollar in den Trust flossen. GBTC wird jetzt unter dem Substanzwert gehandelt und die Arbitrage ist weg. Was den Preis von Bitcoin in die Höhe trieb, funktioniert nun umgekehrt.
Grayscale will GBTC in einen Bitcoin-ETF umwandeln. GBTC-Besitzer und die gesamte Kryptowelt hoffen, dass die SEC einen Bitcoin-ETF genehmigt, der dringend benötigtes frisches Geld in die Kryptowelt brächte. Aber die Chancen, dass dies geschieht, sind gering, wenn überhaupt.
Die Bitcoin stecken in GBTC fest, es sei denn, der Fonds wird aufgelöst. Grayscale möchte das nicht – aber sie werden vielleicht dazu gedrängt werden. [Amy Castor]
Wale brechen aus – Der Preisverfall vom Montag sieht sehr danach aus, dass ein Krypto-Wal beschlossen hat, auszusteigen, solange er noch eine Chance sah, seinen Teil der immer weniger werdenden tatsächlichen Dollars aus dem Kryptosystem zu bekommen. Die Messer werden schon einmal gewetzt. Wer springt als nächstes?
Krypto-Hedgefonds und DeFi
Celsius operierte wie ein Krypto-Hedgefonds, der stark in DeFi investiert war. Das Unternehmen hatte sich in alles eingemischt – daher hat sein Zusammenbruch hohe Wellen in der Kryptowelt geschlagen. Welche anderen Unternehmen sind Zeitbomben?
Three Arrows Capital – Es gibt einige seltsame Dinge, die bei 3AC passieren, sichtbar gemacht durch die Blockchain. Die Führungskräfte des Unternehmens haben auch aufgehört, auf sozialen Medien zu kommunizieren. 3AC ist ein ziemlich großer Krypto-Investor, aber es ist nicht klar, wie systemisch verflochten sie mit dem Rest der Bubble sind. Vielleicht sind sie morgen wieder da und alles ist in Ordnung. [Update: Es sieht nicht gut aus.] [Defiant; Coindesk]
BlockFi – Ein weiterer Krypto-Kreditgeber, der wahnsinnig hohe Renditen verspricht.
Nexo – Und gleich noch einer. Nexo hat angeboten, die Celsius-Darlehen aufzukaufen. Aber Nexo bietet Ponzi-ähnliche Zinssätze mit FOMO-Marketing und keine Transparenz darüber, wie sie solche Zinssätze erreichen könnten.
Swissborg – Diese Krypto-„Vermögensverwaltungsgesellschaft“ hat laut Dirty Bubble Media ein verwaltetes Vermögen in Höhe von mehreren hundert Millionen Dollar (oder „Dollar“). [Twitter-Thread]
Grosse Tranchen bereit zur Freigabe
Krypto-Besitzer können sich keine Ruhe gönnen. Wenn sie ihren Bestand abstossen müssen, dann tun sie das, und zwar richtig.
MicroStrategy – Das Softwareunternehmen von Michael Saylor hat alles auf Bitcoin gesetzt – und diese Wette wird bald fällig. „Bitcoin muss sich zu etwa 21’000 $ halbieren, bevor wir einen Margin Call haben“, sagte Phong Le, Präsident bei MicroStrategy, Anfang Mai. Der Bitcoin-Bestand von MicroStrategy ist jetzt 2,9 Milliarden Dollar wert, was einen nicht realisierten Verlust von mehr als 1 Milliarde Dollar bedeutet. [Bloomberg]
Silvergate Bank – MicroStrategy hat ein Darlehen in Höhe von 205 Millionen Dollar bei der Silvergate Bank aufgenommen, das mit Bitcoin abgesichert ist. Silvergate ist der Bankier der US-Kryptoindustrie – niemand sonst will Krypto anfassen. Silvergate ist stark darin interessiert, den Sesseltanz zu stützen. Wenn Silvergate jemals den Stecker ziehen muss, ist fast die gesamte US-Kryptoindustrie geliefert. [David Gerard]
Bitcoin-Miner – Strom kostet mehr und Bitcoin ist weniger wert. Wenn der Bitcoin-Kurs fällt, wird es für die Miner schwieriger, ihre Geschäftskosten zu tragen. Die Miner haben ihre Coins behalten, weil der Markt zu dünn ist, um sie zu verkaufen. Sie mussten sich von ihren Krypto-Kollegen leihen, um die Rechnungen seit Juli 2021 zu bezahlen. Aber einige Miner haben im Februar 2022 mit dem Verkauf begonnen, weitere folgen. [Wired]
Mt. Gox – Irgendwann, wahrscheinlich noch 2022, werden die 140’000 Bitcoin, die nach dem Zusammenbruch der Kryptobörse Mt. Gox im Jahr 2014 noch vorhanden waren, an die Gläubiger verteilt. Diese Bitcoin werden sofort auf den Markt geworfen und den Bitcoinkurs noch weiter sinken lassen.
Das Titelbild stammt von James Meickle, übersetzt von Marcel Waldvogel, mit herzlichem Dank an XKCD und Karl Marx.
Vergessen Sie nicht, die Patreon-Konten der Originalautoren zu abonnieren. Amy ist hier, David hier. Sie brauchen Ihre Unterstützung für Artikel wie diese!
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit und Rechtssicherheit.
Blockchain-Jünger wollen diese Prozesse «verbessern,» erreichen aber das Gegenteil. Zwei Beispiele:
Ein Hauskauf ist schwierig, langwierig und mit Gebühren gespickt. Hier wahrscheinlich ein viel zu stark vereinfachter Ablauf:
Haus suchen
Haus evaluieren (besichtigen etc.)
Haus schätzen (lassen)
Bank aufsuchen
Hypothek aushandeln
Verkaufspreis und -konditionen aushandeln
Notariatstermin finden
Bankbestätigung organisieren
Vertrag zum Notar schicken
Physisch alle gleichzeitig zum Notariat anreisen
Den Vertrag nochmals vorgelesen bekommen
Händisch mehrfach alles unterschreiben
Schlüssel übergeben
Mängel überprüfen
Und an drölfzig Stellen unverständlich hohe Gebühren bezahlen
Kein Wunder, dass viele diesen Vorgang vereinfachen wollen.
Wunschtraum
Wie einfach wäre es doch, wenn das alles per Mausklick funktionieren könnte! Alle Grundstücke wären—wie im Metaverse—als NFT auf der Blockchain gespeichert und würden mittels eines Smart Contracts gehandelt.
Utopie
Die meisten dieser bürokratischen und teuren Vorgänge würden wegfallen, es würde viel Zeit und Geld gespart und der Staat könnte viel schlanker gemacht werden. Wir wären alle glücklicher und würden uns im Wohlstand suhlen.
Realität
Wer sich etwas mit IT-Sicherheit beschäftigt, der weiss, dass:
Ihnen schickt jemand einen Link, auf den Sie «unbedingt» klicken sollen, weil sonst etwas ganz schlimmes geschieht oder ihnen etwas ganz gutes entgeht.
«Elli from Windows» (reales Beispiel von letzter Woche) ruft Ihnen mit indischem Akzent an und will Ihnen angeblich beim Lösen eines Sicherheitsproblems ihres Computers «helfen».
Ihr Rechner mit den Zugangsdaten zu Ihrer Blockchain geht kaputt, verloren oder wird geklaut.
Im schlimmsten Fall sind Sie in der effizienten «schönen neuen Blockchain-Welt» mit einem einzigen falschen Klick ihr Zuhause los. Und am nächsten Tag kommt die Polizei und nimmt Ihre gesamte Familie als Hausbesetzer fest. Der Effizienzgewinn wird für die Verbrecher höher sein als für die normalen Nutzer.
(In der Aufzählung könnte auch ein Programmfehler, ein Tippfehler, ein Irrtum oder eine Unzahl weiterer Möglichkeiten auftauchen.)
Es kann also auch Vorteile haben, persönlich erscheinen zu müssen, sich nochmals bewusst zu werden, was eigentlich passiert und vielleicht jemanden dabei zu haben, der Sie warnt, wenn möglicherweise etwas schief geht. Alle Parteien sind sich danach einig, dass alle anderen sich der Tragweite der Transaktion bewusst waren. Eine ganz wichtige Grundlage für das Vertrauen, das eine funktionierende Gesellschaft benötigt.
Immobilien ohne Rechtsstaat
Ein weiteres häufig gehörtes Argument von Blockchain-Verfechtern: «Ja, das funktioniert, weil wir hier privilegiert sind und Korruption selten vorkommt. Aber stell dir jetzt vor, du wärst in einem Land ohne funktionierenden Rechtsstaat. Banking the unbanked!»
Ja, in gewissen Ländern mag es durchaus vorkommen, dass man mit Anreizen oder Drohungen den Grundbuchamtschef dazu «überreden» kann, kurz und unauffällig den Eigentümer eines Grundstücks zu ändern. Für das Opfer bedeutet das oft einen harten oder aussichtslosen Kampf, um wieder zu seinem Recht zu kommen.
In einem korrupten Land wechsle ich vom korrupten offiziellen Grundbuchamt zu einem Blockchain-basierten Grundbuch. Wie kann ich aber (a) zeigen, dass ich vorher wirklich der Besitzer war? (b) dass die Übertragung in die Blockchain korrekt ist? Und (c) dass niemand mehr das alte System nutzt? Aber vor allem, was mache ich in einem Land ohne stabiles Rechtssystem, wenn (c) mich jemand mit Gewalt aus meinem Haus wirft?
Wir sehen auch hier, dass die Blockchain kein Problem löst. Im Gegensatz zu vorhin schafft sie zumindest nicht automatisch gleichzeitig unzählige neue Probleme.
Für rein digitale Assets mag eine Blockchain-basierte Buchführung alleine relevant sein. Aber sobald davon auch reale Werte und reale Personen betroffen sind, sind Vertrauen und ein stabiles Rechtssystem unerlässlich. Da ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Sorgen wir also dafür, dass in möglichst vielen Gegenden dieser Erde ein vertrauenswürdiges und breit abgestütztes Rechtssystem existiert. Ohne das läuft nichts, weder mit noch ohne Blockchain. Und wenn wir das haben, dann ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit und Rechtssicherheit.
Blockchain-Jünger wollen diese Prozesse «verbessern,» erreichen aber das Gegenteil. Zwei Beispiele:
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit und Rechtssicherheit.
Blockchain-Jünger wollen diese Prozesse «verbessern,» erreichen aber das Gegenteil. Zwei Beispiele:
Ein Hauskauf ist schwierig, langwierig und mit Gebühren gespickt. Hier wahrscheinlich ein viel zu stark vereinfachter Ablauf:
Haus suchen
Haus evaluieren (besichtigen etc.)
Haus schätzen (lassen)
Bank aufsuchen
Hypothek aushandeln
Verkaufspreis und -konditionen aushandeln
Notariatstermin finden
Bankbestätigung organisieren
Vertrag zum Notar schicken
Physisch alle gleichzeitig zum Notariat anreisen
Den Vertrag nochmals vorgelesen bekommen
Händisch mehrfach alles unterschreiben
Schlüssel übergeben
Mängel überprüfen
Und an drölfzig Stellen unverständlich hohe Gebühren bezahlen
Kein Wunder, dass viele diesen Vorgang vereinfachen wollen.
Wunschtraum
Wie einfach wäre es doch, wenn das alles per Mausklick funktionieren könnte! Alle Grundstücke wären—wie im Metaverse—als NFT auf der Blockchain gespeichert und würden mittels eines Smart Contracts gehandelt.
Utopie
Die meisten dieser bürokratischen und teuren Vorgänge würden wegfallen, es würde viel Zeit und Geld gespart und der Staat könnte viel schlanker gemacht werden. Wir wären alle glücklicher und würden uns im Wohlstand suhlen.
Realität
Wer sich etwas mit IT-Sicherheit beschäftigt, der weiss, dass:
Ihnen schickt jemand einen Link, auf den Sie «unbedingt» klicken sollen, weil sonst etwas ganz schlimmes geschieht oder ihnen etwas ganz gutes entgeht.
«Elli from Windows» (reales Beispiel von letzter Woche) ruft Ihnen mit indischem Akzent an und will Ihnen angeblich beim Lösen eines Sicherheitsproblems ihres Computers «helfen».
Ihr Rechner mit den Zugangsdaten zu Ihrer Blockchain geht kaputt, verloren oder wird geklaut.
Im schlimmsten Fall sind Sie in der effizienten «schönen neuen Blockchain-Welt» mit einem einzigen falschen Klick ihr Zuhause los. Und am nächsten Tag kommt die Polizei und nimmt Ihre gesamte Familie als Hausbesetzer fest. Der Effizienzgewinn wird für die Verbrecher höher sein als für die normalen Nutzer.
(In der Aufzählung könnte auch ein Programmfehler, ein Tippfehler, ein Irrtum oder eine Unzahl weiterer Möglichkeiten auftauchen.)
Es kann also auch Vorteile haben, persönlich erscheinen zu müssen, sich nochmals bewusst zu werden, was eigentlich passiert und vielleicht jemanden dabei zu haben, der Sie warnt, wenn möglicherweise etwas schief geht. Alle Parteien sind sich danach einig, dass alle anderen sich der Tragweite der Transaktion bewusst waren. Eine ganz wichtige Grundlage für das Vertrauen, das eine funktionierende Gesellschaft benötigt.
Immobilien ohne Rechtsstaat
Ein weiteres häufig gehörtes Argument von Blockchain-Verfechtern: «Ja, das funktioniert, weil wir hier privilegiert sind und Korruption selten vorkommt. Aber stell dir jetzt vor, du wärst in einem Land ohne funktionierenden Rechtsstaat. Banking the unbanked!»
Ja, in gewissen Ländern mag es durchaus vorkommen, dass man mit Anreizen oder Drohungen den Grundbuchamtschef dazu «überreden» kann, kurz und unauffällig den Eigentümer eines Grundstücks zu ändern. Für das Opfer bedeutet das oft einen harten oder aussichtslosen Kampf, um wieder zu seinem Recht zu kommen.
In einem korrupten Land wechsle ich vom korrupten offiziellen Grundbuchamt zu einem Blockchain-basierten Grundbuch. Wie kann ich aber (a) zeigen, dass ich vorher wirklich der Besitzer war? (b) dass die Übertragung in die Blockchain korrekt ist? Und (c) dass niemand mehr das alte System nutzt? Aber vor allem, was mache ich in einem Land ohne stabiles Rechtssystem, wenn (c) mich jemand mit Gewalt aus meinem Haus wirft?
Wir sehen auch hier, dass die Blockchain kein Problem löst. Im Gegensatz zu vorhin schafft sie zumindest nicht automatisch gleichzeitig unzählige neue Probleme.
Für rein digitale Assets mag eine Blockchain-basierte Buchführung alleine relevant sein. Aber sobald davon auch reale Werte und reale Personen betroffen sind, sind Vertrauen und ein stabiles Rechtssystem unerlässlich. Da ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Sorgen wir also dafür, dass in möglichst vielen Gegenden dieser Erde ein vertrauenswürdiges und breit abgestütztes Rechtssystem existiert. Ohne das läuft nichts, weder mit noch ohne Blockchain. Und wenn wir das haben, dann ändert auch die Blockchain nichts daran.
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Wieso tauchen gewisse Hype-Themen wie Blockchain oder Maschinelles Lernen/Künstliche Intelligenz regelmässig in IT-Projekten auf, obwohl die Technik nicht wirklich zur gewünschten… Hype-Tech weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat letzten Monat das neueste Produkt seiner Denkfabrik veröffentlicht unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was die Blockchain wirklich… Gottlieb Duttweilers Blockchain: Wirklich‽ weiterlesen
Das Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut hat unter dem Titel «Hype oder Hilfe? Was Blockchain wirklich kann» eine Studie mit den Vorteilen der Blockchain veröffentlicht.… Verteilung hat nicht nur Vorteile weiterlesen
Gestern hat die US-amerikanische Börsenaufsicht SEC ihre Anklageschrift gegen Sam Bankman-Fried veröffentlicht. Sie detailliert die Finanzverflechtungen von FTX, Alameda Research und… Das kryptische Spinnennetz der Kryptobörse FTX weiterlesen
„NFT“ ist zur Zeit wieder in aller Munde, nicht nur wegen der Pro Senectute. Was steckt aber eigentlich hinter den vollmundigen… Was ist eigentlich ein NFT? weiterlesen
Immer wieder taucht die Frage nach dem Einsatz von digitalem Geld bei Netzausfall auf. Hier eine Übersicht über die Möglichkeiten und… Digitales Offline-Geld? weiterlesen
📹 Netzpolitischer Abend zu Metaverse und NFT zum Nachschauen
Für alle, die den Abend vor Ort verpasst haben: Die Videoaufzeichnungen des gestreamten Teils des Netzpolitischen Abends über Metaverse und NFT sind inzwischen verfügbar.
Bürokratie und Ineffizienz sind verpönt, häufig zu recht. Doch sie haben auch ihre guten Seiten: Richtig angewandt sorgen sie für Verlässlichkeit… Ineffizienz ist gut (manchmal) weiterlesen
Über Ostern ist «Jia Tan» aufgeflogen, gerade als er(?) dabei war, seine über Jahren sorgfältig vorbereitete Sicherheitslücke in Abermillionen Rechner weltweit zu verteilen. Wenn sie nicht rechtzeitig entdeckt worden wäre, hätte das mögliche
Über Ostern ist «Jia Tan» aufgeflogen, gerade als er(?) dabei war, seine über Jahren sorgfältig vorbereitete Sicherheitslücke in Abermillionen Rechner weltweit zu verteilen. Wenn sie nicht rechtzeitig entdeckt worden wäre, hätte das möglicherweise zur grössten bekannten IT-Sicherheitskatastrophe führen können. Auch nach bald zwei Monaten ist noch sehr wenig über die Person(en) oder Organisation hinter dem Angriff bekannt. Unter anderem, weil das oder die Opfer nicht bekannt wurden (eben, weil die Vorbereitung rechtzeitig entdeckt wurde).
Es gibt Mutmassungen darüber, ob es ein Einzeltäter oder eine Gruppe war.
Zusätzlich haben wir aus früheren Cyberangriffen und Verteidigungsszenarien Informationen über mögliche Ziele und deren Werte (Kosten/Nutzen).
Im DNIP-Artikel schauen wir uns diese zuerst einzeln an und versuchen sie nachher zusammenzufügen. Das Ziel ist es vor allem, einen Überblick über das zu geben, was an Informationen da ist und was man daraus schliessen kann (und wo man nur Hinweise hat).
Ein weiteres—extrem informatives—Puzzlestück fehlt, nämlich, was das konkrete Ziel gewesen wäre. Ich bin aber froh, dass wir das nicht herausfinden mussten.
Trotzdem geben diese Informationen Einblick in mögliche Ziele und was wir (Einzelne, Firmen, Politik) ändern müssen.
Interessen, Ziele und deren Wert
Der Überblick über die potenziellen Interessen von typischen Organisationen hilft uns, die Ziele und ihr Wert besser zu verstehen.
Einige der Ziele hätten möglicherweise einen Wert von mehreren Milliarden(!) gehabt. Hacken kann also durchaus lukrativ sein. (Auch wenn ich so fähige Leute lieber auf dieser Seite des Gesetzes wissen würde.)
Was lernen wir daraus?
„Für mich/uns interessiert sich ja eh keiner“: Ich glaube, die wichtigste Erkenntnis ist, dass wir alle, als Individuum oder als Teil einer Firma/Organisation, eine wichtige Rolle in einem Cyberangriff spielen könnten. Und wir uns und unsere Organisation entsprechend schützen müssen.
Bedrohungslage erkennen. Wer glaubt, dass Computer unter deren Verantwortung oder Informationen darauf missbraucht werden könnten, um Chaos zu stiften (oder dieses Chaos zu verstärken), sollte diese Rechner und Daten besonders gut schützen. (Der nächste militärische oder wirtschaftliche Konflikt wird eine grosse Cyberkomponente beinhalten.)
Wir alle sollten uns besser schützen. Diese Checklisten mit Hintergrundinformationen bieten einen guten Start für Einzelne und kleine Firmen. (Auch für grössere Firmen sind sie nicht falsch, dort braucht es aber jemanden mit spezifischer Kenntnis über die IT-Prozesse vor Ort.)
Früherkennung von Anomalien. Falls irgendwas sich unerklärlicherweise anders verhält als erwartet: Unbedingt mit einem Experten sprechen. Jemand Unbefugtes könnte gerade dabei sein, es sich in Ihrer IT-Infrastruktur gemütlich zu machen.
Wir haben gesehen, dass einzelne unsichere Computer Angreifer ünterstützen können, einfacher ganze Firmen oder Länder lahmzulegen. Es sollte also jede:r, egal für wie klein und unwichtig er/sie sich hält, seine Computer schützen. Vieles davon ist auch gar nicht schwer. Und hilft euch auch!
Marcel Waldvogel: Was uns Ransomware zu Datenschutz und Datensicherheit lehrt, 2022-12-05. Einige Tipps für Individuen und KMUs, die auch gegen Cyberangriffe helfen. Sie taugen nur bedingt für Grossfirmen und exponierte Personen/Organisationen; diese brauchen spezifisches, erfahrenes Personal und auf sie zugeschnittene Lösungen.
Uwe Johnson: Mutmassungen über Jakob, 1959, Wikipedia-Eintrag dazu. Nur der Namensgeber dieses Artikels.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters mit Aussagen, die nicht unwidersprochen bleiben können.
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden kennenzulernen. Und danach – viel wichtiger – was wir tun können, um uns zu schützen.
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen), Bilder (auch die peinlichen) und Kommentare (auch die blöden Sprüche) auf Facebook und Instagram, die Interaktionen mit dem KI-Chatbot «Meta… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen» gewesen sei. Und nun könne «man gratis oder für eine Gebühr von etwa 20 Dollar pro Monat jede Zeitung auf… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
Hatte mich nach wahrscheinlich mehr als einem Jahr mal wieder bei Facebook eingeloggt. Das erste, was mir entgegenkam: Offensichtlicher Spam, der mittels falscher Botschaften auf Klicks abzielte. Aber beim Versuch, einen wahrheitsgemässen Bericht über ein EuGH-Urteil gegen Facebook zu posten, wurde dieser unter dem Vorwand, ich würde Spam verbreiten, gelöscht. Was ist passiert?
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz viele Leute ganz wenig Ahnung haben, wie die Datenflüsse bei KI-Chatbots wie ChatGPT etc. eigentlich ablaufen. Deshalb habe ich für… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
Die 3 Aspekte der Cloud und die zwei Farben der Sicherheit
Neben rund 100 wissenschaftlichen Publikationen zum Thema habe ich auch viele allgemeinverständliche Artikel geschrieben.
Letzten August fand an der Hackerkonferenz DEFCON eine Veranstaltung der Election Integrity Foundation statt. Sie fasste mit einem hochkarätigen Podium wesentliche Kritikpunkte rund um eVoting zusammen.
Da ich gerade festgestellt habe, dass ich dieses wichtige Transkript hier noch nie erwähnt habe, hole ich dies nach:
Wer das gerne nachschauen oder nachlesen möchte, um die Argumente besser zu verstehen, darf gerne das Video oder den (leicht aufgeräumten) Text konsultieren. Viel Spass!
DEF CON Voting Village 2023Day 2: August 12, 2023, 10:30amPanel: If I Can Shop Online, Why Can't I Vote Online?Susan Greenhalgh (moderator)David JeffersonMat...
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten.
Vor Kurzem hat Firefox begonnen, selbst zu tracken.
Was tun?
Im Firefo
... mehr anzeigen
Auch du, mein Sohn Firefox
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten.
Vor Kurzem hat Firefox begonnen, selbst zu tracken.
Was tun?
Im Firefox (ab Version 128, die vor kurzem ausgerollt wurde), gibt es in den Privatsphäreeinstellungen einen Schalter «Websites erlauben, datenschutzfreundliche Werbe-Messungen durchzuführen». Dieser ist auszuschalten. Die Datenschutzeinstellung bei Firefox, das zu deaktivierende Häkchen unter «Werbeeinstellungen für Websites» ist fett rot durchkreuzt. Erreichbar über «Menü → Einstellungen → Datenschutz & Sicherheit» (oder Eingabe von about:preferences#privacy in der Adresszeile) und dann runterscrollen. Wenn es dort nicht ist, habt ihr wohl noch eine ältere Firefox-Version als 128.0. Ach ja: Wenn man mehre Feuerfüchse (Firefoxe?) nutzt, muss man das auf jedem einzeln deaktivieren. Auch wenn sie über das Firefox-Konto miteinander verbunden sind. [neu 2024-08-01]
Alternativ kann man auch auf die privatsphärefreundliche Variante („Fork“) von Firefox, Librewolf, wechseln.
Kritik?
Q: «So kurze Artikel sind wir aber von dir eigentlich gar nicht gewohnt! Wo bleibt da Hintergrund etc. dazu?»
Keine Bange, kommt demnächst! Sobald ich Zeit habe. Aber das musste jetzt zwischendurch raus.
An dieser Stelle folgt dann später auch eine weitergehende Information.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters mit Aussagen, die nicht unwidersprochen bleiben können.
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden kennenzulernen. Und danach – viel wichtiger – was wir tun können, um uns zu schützen.
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen), Bilder (auch die peinlichen) und Kommentare (auch die blöden Sprüche) auf Facebook und Instagram, die Interaktionen mit dem KI-Chatbot «Meta… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen» gewesen sei. Und nun könne «man gratis oder für eine Gebühr von etwa 20 Dollar pro Monat jede Zeitung auf… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
Hatte mich nach wahrscheinlich mehr als einem Jahr mal wieder bei Facebook eingeloggt. Das erste, was mir entgegenkam: Offensichtlicher Spam, der mittels falscher Botschaften auf Klicks abzielte. Aber beim Versuch, einen wahrheitsgemässen Bericht über ein EuGH-Urteil gegen Facebook zu posten, wurde dieser unter dem Vorwand, ich würde Spam verbreiten, gelöscht. Was ist passiert?
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz viele Leute ganz wenig Ahnung haben, wie die Datenflüsse bei KI-Chatbots wie ChatGPT etc. eigentlich ablaufen. Deshalb habe ich für… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
In den 1½ Wochen seit Publikation der ersten beiden Teile hat sich einiges getan. Microsoft liess es sich nicht nehmen, die Schuld am Vorfall der EU in die Schuhe zu schieben, wie das Apple mit ihrer KI ja auch schon frech versuchte. Andererseits haben die Diskussionen zum Vorfall viele Hinweise darauf gegeben, wie IT-Verantwortliche ihre… CrowdStrike, die Dritte weiterlesen
Ich habe die letzten Wochen viele Informationen zu CrowdStrike zusammengetragen und bei DNIP veröffentlicht. Hier ein paar Punkte, die bei DNIP nicht gepasst hätten. Einiges davon ist sinnvolles Hintergrundwissen, einiges taugt eher als Anekdote für die Kaffeepause.
Beim Pendeln hatte ich viel Zeit. Auch um Mails aus dem Spamordner zu lesen. Hier ein paar Dinge, die man daraus lernen kann. Um sich und sein Umfeld zu schützen.
Die andauernden CookieBanner nerven. Aber noch viel mehr nervt es, wenn in der Liste von „800 sorgfältig ausgewählten Werbepartnern (oder so)“ einige Schalter fix auf „diese Werbe-/Datenmarketingplattform darf immer Cookies setzen, so sehr ihr euch auch wehrt, liebe User“ eingestellt sind und sich nicht ändern lassen. Da fühlt man sich gleich so richtig ernst genommen.… Die NZZ liefert Daten an Microsoft — und Nein sagen ist nicht weiterlesen
Am Freitag standen in weiten Teilen der Welt Millionen von Windows-Rechnern still: Bancomaten, Lebensmittelgeschäfte, Flughäfen, Spitäler uvam. waren lahmgelegt. Die Schweiz blieb weitgehend nur verschont, weil sie noch schlief. Ich schaue hinter die Kulissen und zeige auf, was wir tun müssen, damit dies nicht nochmals passiert. Leider betrifft uns das alle.
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten. Der Auslöser Vor Kurzem hat Firefox begonnen, selbst zu tracken. Was tun? Im Firefox (ab Version 128, die vor kurzem ausgerollt wurde),… Auch du, mein Sohn Firefox weiterlesen
Letzten August fand an der Hackerkonferenz DEFCON eine Veranstaltung der Election Integrity Foundation statt. Sie fasste mit einem hochkarätigen Podium wesentliche Kritikpunkte rund um eVoting zusammen.
Ich habe vor Kurzem das Buch «QualityLand» von Marc-Uwe Kling von 2017 in meinem Büchergestell gefunden. Und war erstaunt, wie akkurat es die Gegenwart erklärt. Eine Leseempfehlung.
Vor 50 Jahren erfand Ken Thompson die «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke». Vor gut 40 Jahren präsentierte er sie als Vortrag unter dem Titel «Reflections on Trusting Trust» anlässlich der Verleihung des Turing-Awards, des «Nobelpreises der Informatik». Hier ein kleiner Überblick, was es damit auf sich hat. Ausführlich im Artikel von Patrick Seemann.
Eines der Argumente für eVoting ist die Erhöhung der Stimmbeteiligung. Stimmbeteiligung—nur für sich alleine gesehen—ist keine ausreichende Metrik für die Beurteilung der Funktionsfähigkeit einer Demokratie, trotzdem spielt sie eine wichtige Rolle. Die «Vote électronique», wie eVoting in der Schweiz offiziell heisst, bringt aber auch neue Risiken, wie die Gefahr von Intransparenz und gezielter Abstimmungsmanipulation sowie… Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen ohne eVoting weiterlesen
Letzten August fand an der Hackerkonferenz DEFCON eine Veranstaltung der Election Integrity Foundation statt. Sie fasste mit einem hochkarätigen Podium wesentliche Kritikpunkte rund um eVoting zusammen.
Da ich gerade festgestellt habe, dass ich dieses wichtige Transkript hier noch nie erwähnt habe, hole ich dies nach:
Wer das gerne nachschauen oder nachlesen möchte, um die Argumente besser zu verstehen, darf gerne das Video oder den (leicht aufgeräumten) Text konsultieren. Viel Spass!
DEF CON Voting Village 2023Day 2: August 12, 2023, 10:30amPanel: If I Can Shop Online, Why Can't I Vote Online?Susan Greenhalgh (moderator)David JeffersonMat...
Am Freitag standen in weiten Teilen der Welt Millionen von Windows-Rechnern still: Bancomaten, Lebensmittelgeschäfte, Flughäfen, Spitäler uvam. waren lahmgelegt. Die Schweiz blieb weitgehend nur verschont, weil sie noch schlief. Ich schaue hinter die Kulissen und zeige auf, was wir tun müssen, damit dies nicht nochmals passiert. Leider betrifft uns das alle.
Am Freitag standen in weiten Teilen der Welt Millionen von Windows-Rechnern still: Bancomaten, Lebensmittelgeschäfte, Flughäfen, Spitäler uvam. waren lahmgelegt. Die Schweiz blieb weitgehend nur verschont, weil sie noch schlief. Ich schaue hinter die Kulissen und zeige auf, was wir tun müssen, damit dies nicht nochmals passiert. Leider betrifft uns das alle.
Die Schweiz kam gut davon. Aber nicht, weil wir aufgeweckt, sondern weil wir verschlafen sind (wir hatten noch Nacht).
Die SkyGuide-Geschichte ist etwas anders als ich ursprünglich dachte. Mehr dazu (Hintergrund, was bleibt) in der Korrigenda. [geändert 2024-07-24] Die einzigen mit öffentlich bekannten grösseren Ausfällen in der Schweiz war SkyGuide, deren Flugverkehrskontrolle durch CrowdStrike lahmgelegt wurde. Interessanterweise verbieten die AGB den Einsatz der Software in diesem Bereich. Auf diese Diskrepanz angesprochen meinte deren Pressestelle nur: «Skyguide setzt seit einigen Jahren Crowdstrike ein. Zu Einkaufsprozessen, Vertragsverhandlungen mit Lieferanten und operativem Einsatz äussern wir uns nicht.» Ich habe Fragen…
Können wir gut schlafen? Nein, denn auch bei der Energieversorgung sind wir nur mit Glück vor grösseren Problemen verschont geblieben. Denn einige der grössten Stromkonzerne setzen CrowdStrike ein. Und hatten — zum Glück — nur ein paar interne Probleme. Das kann das nächste Mal anders aussehen.
Als Volk sind wir indirekt Chefs vieler dieser Firmen und der Aufsichtsorgane. Wir sollten also an guten Vermeidungsstrategien interessiert sein. Hoffe ich.
Der CrowdStrike-Vorfall war die schlimmste Art von Ausfall: Diejenige, die bedingt, dass alle Administrator:innen herumrennen müssen. Jeder PC will besucht werden, um ihn dort in einem Spezialmodus zu starten und ein paar Passwörter einzugeben, bevor man die auslösende Datei löschen kann.
Extrem aufwändig, vor allem in Firmen mit vielen Rechnern über viele Standorte verteilt. Ausgelöst durch eine Software, die u.a. genau das verhindern sollte.
Sie lagen daran, dass nicht richtig getestet wurde. Und Updates noch diesen „Channel Files“ nicht verzögert werden können („Staged rollout“). Und wahrscheinlich an den Entscheidungen des CrowdStrike-Managements, die dafür sorgten.
CrowdStrike ist extrem zurückhaltend, was Informationen betrifft. Ein Problem, welches schon die Vorgängerfirma des aktuellen CEO betraf.
Ein schlechtes Zeichen. Ganz besonders für eine Firma, die von Vertrauen lebt.
Aber was ist denn dieser ominöse «Logic error», der durch dieses CrowdStrike-Channel-File ausgelöst wurde und hinter dem gesamten Absturz von über 8 Millionen Rechnern weltweit steht? Nicht viel:
Programmcode ist die Festschreibung der Logik hinter dem Programm bzw. seinen Algorithmen, also den Rechenanweisungen. Das Programm *ist* die Logik. Entsprechend ist ein Logikfehler einfach ein hundskommuner Programmfehler. Einfach schön verpackt.
Ein weiteres Anzeichen für Intransparenz. Nicht gut.
Was lernen wir daraus?
Homogenität ist gut, Heterogenität rettet aber Leben.
Testen, testen, testen.
Staged Rollout (nicht alles gleichzeitig updaten) für alles Kritische. Immer.
Systeme sollten sich einen letzten guten Zustand merken. Nicht einfach, aber wichtig.
Es wäre in grossen Firmen empfehlenswert, wenn man Systeme aus der Ferne neu aufsetzen könnte.
Aber unbezahlbar sind gute IT-Ingenieur:innen mit Überblick. Sie können solche Risiken rechtzeitig erkennen. Das Management muss aber auch hören wollen.
Alle Entscheidungsträger sollten auch den «Move fast and break things»-Artikel lesen. Da werden lehrreiche und spannende Geschichten erzählt, wie ein moderner, zuverlässiger Softwareentwicklungsprozess aussieht (keine Programmierkenntnisse nötig, ehrlich).
Und welche Fehler von früher wir damit vermeiden, die dem „klassischen“ Softwareentwicklungsprozess immer noch anhaften.
Bei konsequenter Umsetzung wäre CrowdStrike wohl nicht so passiert.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters… VÜPF: Staatliche Überwachungsfantasien im Realitätscheck weiterlesen
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden… Phishing-Trend Schweizerdeutsch weiterlesen
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen),… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen»… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
In den 1½ Wochen seit Publikation der ersten beiden Teile hat sich einiges getan. Microsoft liess es sich nicht nehmen, die Schuld am Vorfall der EU in die Schuhe zu schieben, wie das Apple mit… CrowdStrike, die Dritte weiterlesen
Ich habe die letzten Wochen viele Informationen zu CrowdStrike zusammengetragen und bei DNIP veröffentlicht. Hier ein paar Punkte, die bei DNIP nicht gepasst hätten. Einiges davon ist sinnvolles Hintergrundwissen, einiges taugt eher als Anekdote für… Unnützes Wissen zu CrowdStrike weiterlesen
Beim Pendeln hatte ich viel Zeit. Auch um Mails aus dem Spamordner zu lesen. Hier ein paar Dinge, die man daraus lernen kann. Um sich und sein Umfeld zu schützen.
Die andauernden CookieBanner nerven. Aber noch viel mehr nervt es, wenn in der Liste von „800 sorgfältig ausgewählten Werbepartnern (oder so)“ einige Schalter fix auf „diese Werbe-/Datenmarketingplattform darf immer Cookies setzen, so sehr ihr euch… Die NZZ liefert Daten an Microsoft — und Nein sagen ist nicht weiterlesen
Am Freitag standen in weiten Teilen der Welt Millionen von Windows-Rechnern still: Bancomaten, Lebensmittelgeschäfte, Flughäfen, Spitäler uvam. waren lahmgelegt. Die Schweiz blieb weitgehend nur verschont, weil sie noch schlief. Ich schaue hinter die Kulissen und… «CrowdStrike»: Ausfälle verstehen und vermeiden weiterlesen
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten.
Letzten August fand an der Hackerkonferenz DEFCON eine Veranstaltung der Election Integrity Foundation statt. Sie fasste mit einem hochkarätigen Podium wesentliche Kritikpunkte rund um eVoting zusammen.
Ich habe vor Kurzem das Buch «QualityLand» von Marc-Uwe Kling von 2017 in meinem Büchergestell gefunden. Und war erstaunt, wie akkurat es die Gegenwart erklärt. Eine Leseempfehlung.
Vor 50 Jahren erfand Ken Thompson die «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke». Vor gut 40 Jahren präsentierte er sie als Vortrag unter dem Titel «Reflections on Trusting Trust» anlässlich der Verleihung des Turing-Awards, des «Nobelpreises der Informatik». Hier… 50 Jahre «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke» weiterlesen
Eines der Argumente für eVoting ist die Erhöhung der Stimmbeteiligung. Stimmbeteiligung—nur für sich alleine gesehen—ist keine ausreichende Metrik für die Beurteilung der Funktionsfähigkeit einer Demokratie, trotzdem spielt sie eine wichtige Rolle. Die «Vote électronique», wie… Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen ohne eVoting weiterlesen
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten.
Vor Kurzem hat Firefox begonnen, selbst zu tracken.
Was tun?
Im Firefox (ab Version 128, die vor kurzem ausgerollt wurde), gibt es in den Privatsphäreeinstellungen einen Schalter «Websites erlauben, datenschutzfreundliche Werbe-Messungen durchzuführen». Dieser ist auszuschalten. Die Datenschutzeinstellung bei Firefox, das zu deaktivierende Häkchen unter «Werbeeinstellungen für Websites» ist fett rot durchkreuzt. Erreichbar über «Menü → Einstellungen → Datenschutz & Sicherheit» (oder Eingabe von about:preferences#privacy in der Adresszeile) und dann runterscrollen. Wenn es dort nicht ist, habt ihr wohl noch eine ältere Firefox-Version als 128.0. Ach ja: Wenn man mehre Feuerfüchse (Firefoxe?) nutzt, muss man das auf jedem einzeln deaktivieren. Auch wenn sie über das Firefox-Konto miteinander verbunden sind. [neu 2024-08-01]
Alternativ kann man auch auf die privatsphärefreundliche Variante („Fork“) von Firefox, Librewolf, wechseln.
Kritik?
Q: «So kurze Artikel sind wir aber von dir eigentlich gar nicht gewohnt! Wo bleibt da Hintergrund etc. dazu?»
Keine Bange, kommt demnächst! Sobald ich Zeit habe. Aber das musste jetzt zwischendurch raus.
An dieser Stelle folgt dann später auch eine weitergehende Information.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters mit Aussagen, die nicht unwidersprochen bleiben können.
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden kennenzulernen. Und danach – viel wichtiger – was wir tun können, um uns zu schützen.
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen), Bilder (auch die peinlichen) und Kommentare (auch die blöden Sprüche) auf Facebook und Instagram, die Interaktionen mit dem KI-Chatbot «Meta… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen» gewesen sei. Und nun könne «man gratis oder für eine Gebühr von etwa 20 Dollar pro Monat jede Zeitung auf… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
Hatte mich nach wahrscheinlich mehr als einem Jahr mal wieder bei Facebook eingeloggt. Das erste, was mir entgegenkam: Offensichtlicher Spam, der mittels falscher Botschaften auf Klicks abzielte. Aber beim Versuch, einen wahrheitsgemässen Bericht über ein EuGH-Urteil gegen Facebook zu posten, wurde dieser unter dem Vorwand, ich würde Spam verbreiten, gelöscht. Was ist passiert?
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz viele Leute ganz wenig Ahnung haben, wie die Datenflüsse bei KI-Chatbots wie ChatGPT etc. eigentlich ablaufen. Deshalb habe ich für… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
In den 1½ Wochen seit Publikation der ersten beiden Teile hat sich einiges getan. Microsoft liess es sich nicht nehmen, die Schuld am Vorfall der EU in die Schuhe zu schieben, wie das Apple mit ihrer KI ja auch schon frech versuchte. Andererseits haben die Diskussionen zum Vorfall viele Hinweise darauf gegeben, wie IT-Verantwortliche ihre… CrowdStrike, die Dritte weiterlesen
Ich habe die letzten Wochen viele Informationen zu CrowdStrike zusammengetragen und bei DNIP veröffentlicht. Hier ein paar Punkte, die bei DNIP nicht gepasst hätten. Einiges davon ist sinnvolles Hintergrundwissen, einiges taugt eher als Anekdote für die Kaffeepause.
Beim Pendeln hatte ich viel Zeit. Auch um Mails aus dem Spamordner zu lesen. Hier ein paar Dinge, die man daraus lernen kann. Um sich und sein Umfeld zu schützen.
Die andauernden CookieBanner nerven. Aber noch viel mehr nervt es, wenn in der Liste von „800 sorgfältig ausgewählten Werbepartnern (oder so)“ einige Schalter fix auf „diese Werbe-/Datenmarketingplattform darf immer Cookies setzen, so sehr ihr euch auch wehrt, liebe User“ eingestellt sind und sich nicht ändern lassen. Da fühlt man sich gleich so richtig ernst genommen.… Die NZZ liefert Daten an Microsoft — und Nein sagen ist nicht weiterlesen
Am Freitag standen in weiten Teilen der Welt Millionen von Windows-Rechnern still: Bancomaten, Lebensmittelgeschäfte, Flughäfen, Spitäler uvam. waren lahmgelegt. Die Schweiz blieb weitgehend nur verschont, weil sie noch schlief. Ich schaue hinter die Kulissen und zeige auf, was wir tun müssen, damit dies nicht nochmals passiert. Leider betrifft uns das alle.
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten. Der Auslöser Vor Kurzem hat Firefox begonnen, selbst zu tracken. Was tun? Im Firefox (ab Version 128, die vor kurzem ausgerollt wurde),… Auch du, mein Sohn Firefox weiterlesen
Letzten August fand an der Hackerkonferenz DEFCON eine Veranstaltung der Election Integrity Foundation statt. Sie fasste mit einem hochkarätigen Podium wesentliche Kritikpunkte rund um eVoting zusammen.
Ich habe vor Kurzem das Buch «QualityLand» von Marc-Uwe Kling von 2017 in meinem Büchergestell gefunden. Und war erstaunt, wie akkurat es die Gegenwart erklärt. Eine Leseempfehlung.
Vor 50 Jahren erfand Ken Thompson die «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke». Vor gut 40 Jahren präsentierte er sie als Vortrag unter dem Titel «Reflections on Trusting Trust» anlässlich der Verleihung des Turing-Awards, des «Nobelpreises der Informatik». Hier ein kleiner Überblick, was es damit auf sich hat. Ausführlich im Artikel von Patrick Seemann.
Eines der Argumente für eVoting ist die Erhöhung der Stimmbeteiligung. Stimmbeteiligung—nur für sich alleine gesehen—ist keine ausreichende Metrik für die Beurteilung der Funktionsfähigkeit einer Demokratie, trotzdem spielt sie eine wichtige Rolle. Die «Vote électronique», wie eVoting in der Schweiz offiziell heisst, bringt aber auch neue Risiken, wie die Gefahr von Intransparenz und gezielter Abstimmungsmanipulation sowie… Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen ohne eVoting weiterlesen
Die NZZ liefert Daten an Microsoft — und Nein sagen ist nicht
Die andauernden CookieBanner nerven. Aber noch viel mehr nervt es, wenn in der Liste von „800 sorgfältig ausgewählten Werbepartnern (oder so)“ einige Schalter fix auf „diese Werbe-/Datenmarketingplattform darf immer Cookies setzen, so sehr ihr euch auch wehrt, liebe User“ eingestellt sind und sich nicht ändern lassen. Da fühlt man sich gleich so richtig ernst genommen. NICHT!
Dieser Artikel ist eine Kürzestzusammenfassung des
... mehr anzeigen
Die NZZ liefert Daten an Microsoft — und Nein sagen ist nicht
Die andauernden CookieBanner nerven. Aber noch viel mehr nervt es, wenn in der Liste von „800 sorgfältig ausgewählten Werbepartnern (oder so)“ einige Schalter fix auf „diese Werbe-/Datenmarketingplattform darf immer Cookies setzen, so sehr ihr euch auch wehrt, liebe User“ eingestellt sind und sich nicht ändern lassen. Da fühlt man sich gleich so richtig ernst genommen. NICHT!
Aber nutzt auch Werbeplattformen wie die zu #Microsoft gehörende #Xandr, um Werbung auszuspielen. Beim Lesen eines Gesundheitsartikel beispielsweise auch, dass du dich für dieses Thema interessierst.
Gesundheitsdaten sind allerdings laut Datenschutzgesetz besonders schützenswerte Personendaten. Und sollten nur nach expliziter Einwilligung verarbeitet werden. Und schon gar nicht automatisch in unsichere Drittstaaten übermittelt werden, also z.B. in die USA, den Hauptsitz von Xandr. (Von wo aus sie durch die Werbe- und Datenhandelsnetzwerke in die ganze Welt verteilt werden; nicht nur über Xandr.)
Natürlich darf neben dieser Analyse, juristischer Beurteilung von Simon Schlauri, Hinweis auf die ganzen Privatsphärerisiken dieser #Werbenetzwerke und #Datensammel|netzwerke auch ein Hinweis auf die in diesem Umfeld beliebten «Deceptive Patterns» nicht fehlen: Tricksereien, mit denen wir gegen unsere eigentliche Absicht zu etwas anderem verführt werden.
Deceptive Patterns überall
In der ganzen Datensammel-Industrie wird mit Deceptive Patterns gearbeitet (auch als «Dark Patterns» bekannt): Die Benutzer:innen soll verwirrt werden, dass sie eine Auswahl treffen, die sie eigentlich gar nicht hätten treffen wollen. Ein typisches Beispiel ist der «Alle Cookies akzeptieren»-Knopf, der hervorgehoben ist, während andere Optionen, wie z.B. «Aktuelle Einstellungen speichern» oder «Alle optionalen Cookies ablehnen» möglichst versteckt werden.
Ein weiteres Beispiel sehen wir hier: Dieses „immer aktiviert“ ist gar nicht immer aktiv, sondern kann geändert werden. Aber die meisten Leute glauben, dass sie keine Wahl hätten (oder wollen nicht die nötigen zusätzlichen Klicks auf sich nehmen): Screenshot einer früheren Version des Watson-Cookie-Dialogs (ebenfalls aus dem DNIP-Artikel). Klick aufs Bild für mehr Inhalt.
Die Werbetreibenden haben über Jahrzehnte den Glauben aufgebaut, dass sie alles über ihre Kunden wissen müssten, damit sie die optimale Werbung ausspielen könnten.
Die Werbenetzwerke fördern diesen Glauben. Denn daran verdienen sie. Und an den Daten, die sie damit sammeln können.
Aber: Dieses ganze feingranulare, hochglanzmässig aufgemachte #Targeting von Werbung funktioniert eigentlich gar nicht in dem Masse, wie das gerne geglaubt wird.
Sehr gut merkt man das beispielsweise dann, wenn man eine grössere Anschaffung plant und einige Tage zu diesem Thema surft. Auch nach der erfolgreichen Beschaffung sieht man dann noch länger andauernd Werbung für diese Beschaffung. Obwohl man jetzt die nächsten Jahre sicher diese Anschaffung nicht nochmals machen wird.
Auch die NZZ hatte das gemerkt und deshalb in ihrem Jahresbericht Besserung versprochen: Sie würden nur noch Werbung ausspielen, die zum Thema des Artikels passe; und nicht mehr von der Leserin abhängig sei.
Aber scheinbar bewegt sich jetzt doch in die Gegenrichtung.
Die dunklen Ecken der Werbenetzwerke
Neben den eigentlichen Werbetreibenden (und ihrem Datenhunger) gibt es noch zwei weitere Gruppen:
Erstens, reine Datensammelorganisationen, welche an diesen Werbenetzwerken mithorchen und alles über uns sammeln. Auch, ob wir wahrscheinlich für einen Geheimdienst arbeiten oder sonst ein interessantes Ziel wären. Daten, die eigentlich nicht gesammelt werden sollten.
Und zweitens: Hier noch ein (etwas gruseliger) Einblick, in wie sich diese „Empfehlungsnetzwerke“ finanzieren:
Sie sorgen dafür, dass du in ein Rabbit Hole (Kaninchenloch?) von tausenden von Werbeanzeigen reingezogen wirst. Und verdienen sich daran eine goldige Nase.
Wegen der doch zwischendurch (aus Sicht der Empfehlungsnetzwerke absichtlich) verstörenden Bilder nur etwas für Leute mit starken Nerven.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters… VÜPF: Staatliche Überwachungsfantasien im Realitätscheck weiterlesen
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden… Phishing-Trend Schweizerdeutsch weiterlesen
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen),… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen»… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
In den 1½ Wochen seit Publikation der ersten beiden Teile hat sich einiges getan. Microsoft liess es sich nicht nehmen, die Schuld am Vorfall der EU in die Schuhe zu schieben, wie das Apple mit… CrowdStrike, die Dritte weiterlesen
Ich habe die letzten Wochen viele Informationen zu CrowdStrike zusammengetragen und bei DNIP veröffentlicht. Hier ein paar Punkte, die bei DNIP nicht gepasst hätten. Einiges davon ist sinnvolles Hintergrundwissen, einiges taugt eher als Anekdote für… Unnützes Wissen zu CrowdStrike weiterlesen
Beim Pendeln hatte ich viel Zeit. Auch um Mails aus dem Spamordner zu lesen. Hier ein paar Dinge, die man daraus lernen kann. Um sich und sein Umfeld zu schützen.
Die andauernden CookieBanner nerven. Aber noch viel mehr nervt es, wenn in der Liste von „800 sorgfältig ausgewählten Werbepartnern (oder so)“ einige Schalter fix auf „diese Werbe-/Datenmarketingplattform darf immer Cookies setzen, so sehr ihr euch… Die NZZ liefert Daten an Microsoft — und Nein sagen ist nicht weiterlesen
Am Freitag standen in weiten Teilen der Welt Millionen von Windows-Rechnern still: Bancomaten, Lebensmittelgeschäfte, Flughäfen, Spitäler uvam. waren lahmgelegt. Die Schweiz blieb weitgehend nur verschont, weil sie noch schlief. Ich schaue hinter die Kulissen und… «CrowdStrike»: Ausfälle verstehen und vermeiden weiterlesen
Ich habe bisher immer Firefox empfohlen, weil seine Standardeinstellungen aus Sicht der Privatsphäre sehr gut waren, im Vergleich zu den anderen „grossen Browsern“. Das hat sich geändert. Leider. Was wir jetzt tun sollten.
Letzten August fand an der Hackerkonferenz DEFCON eine Veranstaltung der Election Integrity Foundation statt. Sie fasste mit einem hochkarätigen Podium wesentliche Kritikpunkte rund um eVoting zusammen.
Ich habe vor Kurzem das Buch «QualityLand» von Marc-Uwe Kling von 2017 in meinem Büchergestell gefunden. Und war erstaunt, wie akkurat es die Gegenwart erklärt. Eine Leseempfehlung.
Vor 50 Jahren erfand Ken Thompson die «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke». Vor gut 40 Jahren präsentierte er sie als Vortrag unter dem Titel «Reflections on Trusting Trust» anlässlich der Verleihung des Turing-Awards, des «Nobelpreises der Informatik». Hier… 50 Jahre «unentdeckbare Sicherheitslücke» weiterlesen
Eines der Argumente für eVoting ist die Erhöhung der Stimmbeteiligung. Stimmbeteiligung—nur für sich alleine gesehen—ist keine ausreichende Metrik für die Beurteilung der Funktionsfähigkeit einer Demokratie, trotzdem spielt sie eine wichtige Rolle. Die «Vote électronique», wie… Stimmbeteiligung erhöhen ohne eVoting weiterlesen
«5 Minuten für mehr Datenschutz»: Tracking vermeiden
«Überwachungskapitalismus» wird der Versuch vieler Webseiten auch genannt, uns dauernd zu überwachen und aus diesen persönlichen Daten Kapital zu schlagen. Trotz vieler Fortschritte helfen Gesetze da bisher nur Ansatzweise. «Eigenverantwortung» ist also wieder einmal angesagt…
Dies ist eine Kurzversion meines soeben erschienen (wie immer kostenlosen!) DNIP-Artikels «Tracking, nein danke!», der Hintergründe und Details besser beleuchtet.
Dies während den Festtagen bei allen Freunden und der ganzen Familie empfehlen. Oder noch besser: Gleich ihnen bei der Umstellung helfen. Das wäre doch einmal ein wirklich guter Vorsatz!
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass der automatische Upload auf Android unzuverlässig sei, konnte das aber nicht richtig festmachen. Jetzt weiss ich wieso und was dabei hilft.
Die Revision der «Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs» (VÜPF) schreckte die Schweiz spät auf. Am Wochenende publizierte die NZZ ein Streitgespräch zum VÜPF. Darin findet sich vor allem ein Absatz des VÜPF-Verschärfungs-Befürworters mit Aussagen, die nicht unwidersprochen bleiben können.
Spam und Phishingversuche auf Schweizerdeutsch scheinen beliebter zu werden. Wieso nutzen Spammer denn diese Nischensprache? Schauen wir in dieser kleinen Weiterbildung in Sachen Spam und Phishing zuerst hinter die Kulissen der Betrüger, um ihre Methoden kennenzulernen. Und danach – viel wichtiger – was wir tun können, um uns zu schützen.
Meta – Zuckerbergs Imperium hinter Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads etc. – hat angekündigt, ab 27. Mai die persönlichen Daten seiner Nutzer:innen in Europa für KI-Training zu verwenden. Dazu gehören alle Beiträge (auch die zutiefst persönlichen), Bilder (auch die peinlichen) und Kommentare (auch die blöden Sprüche) auf Facebook und Instagram, die Interaktionen mit dem KI-Chatbot «Meta… Persönliche Daten für Facebook-KI weiterlesen
Bert Hubert, niederländischer Internetpionier und Hansdampf-in-allen-Gassen, hat einen grossartigen Artikel geschrieben, in dem er die Verwirrung rund um «in die Cloud gehen» auflöst. Ich habe ihn für DNIP auf Deutsch übersetzt.
Vor ein paar Wochen hat die NZZ einen Artikel veröffentlicht, in dem Petra Gössi das NZZ-Team erschreckte, weil via KI-Chatbot angeblich «beinahe der gesamte Inhalt des Artikels […] in der Antwort von Perplexity zu lesen» gewesen sei. Und nun könne «man gratis oder für eine Gebühr von etwa 20 Dollar pro Monat jede Zeitung auf… Können KI-Systeme Artikel klauen? weiterlesen
Seit bald 20 Jahren werden die CPU-Kerne für Computer nicht mehr schneller. Trotzdem werden neue Prozessoren verkauft. Und der Trend geht in die Cloud. Wie das zusammenhängt.
Hatte mich nach wahrscheinlich mehr als einem Jahr mal wieder bei Facebook eingeloggt. Das erste, was mir entgegenkam: Offensichtlicher Spam, der mittels falscher Botschaften auf Klicks abzielte. Aber beim Versuch, einen wahrheitsgemässen Bericht über ein EuGH-Urteil gegen Facebook zu posten, wurde dieser unter dem Vorwand, ich würde Spam verbreiten, gelöscht. Was ist passiert?
«Täderlät» die KI? Vor ein paar Wochen fragte mich jemand besorgt, ob man denn gar nichts in Chatbot-Fenster eingeben könne, was man nicht auch öffentlich teilen würde. Während der Erklärung fiel mir auf, dass ganz viele Leute ganz wenig Ahnung haben, wie die Datenflüsse bei KI-Chatbots wie ChatGPT etc. eigentlich ablaufen. Deshalb habe ich für… Was verraten KI-Chatbots? weiterlesen
Wir kennen «1984» nicht, weil es eine technische, objektive Abhandlung war. Wir erinnern uns, weil es eine packende, düstere, verstörende Erzählung ist.
In der EU wird seit vergangenem Mittwoch wieder über die sogenannte «Chatkontrolle» verhandelt. Worum geht es da? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf die Schweiz?
Die vergangene Woche war Tracking durch Webseiten ein Dauerthema. Niemand scheint unseren Willen nach Privatsphäre respektieren zu wollen. Da muss doch
AI Poisoning example from the Glaze team via Ars Technica
“Haustür mit Krokodil” (“front door with crocodile”) according to MidJourney. The “Krok” neon lighting is the only reference to the prompt I could find.
«A robot reading a newspaper outside in a Swiss city while waiting for the train. Large-size photography, Jeff Wall style. Very detailed. Very high resolution. Linhof Master Technika Classic. Hasselblad. 80 mm.»
«Ein Roboter liest draussen in einer Schweizer Stadt eine Zeitung, während er auf den Zug wartet. Grossformatige Fotografie im Stil von Jeff Wall. Sehr detailliert. Sehr hohe Auflösung. Linhof Master Technika Classic. Hasselblad. 80 mm.»
«Intelligence. Magazine illustration.»
«A Greek statue, stumbling over a cat.»
«Neural Network.»
«A robot, reading a book, in an Indian street. Style: National Geographic.»
«An ancient Egyptian painting, depicting a fight over whose turn it is to take out the trash.»
«A modern sneaker made of clouds.»
«A robot at Paul Klee's typewriter.»
«A robot at a typewriter by Paul Klee»
«The Royal Skateboard of England, exhibited between the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.»
«A robot reading a book, as a stained-glass window.»
«Front door with crocodile» (second row without the “front”)
Left: A “normal” two-dimensional coordinate system with orthogonal, linear and proportional axes, labeled X and Y, as almost any coordinate system we will deal with in real life. Adding two vectors (arrows) of length 1 aligned to the axes, A and B, allows us to follow a series of these arrows to the destination.
Left: Our vector A is no longer aligned to the X axis.
Left: The vectors are now almost aligned.
After doubling the length of B (left) or turning B as well (right), every other point in the coordinate systems becomes unreachable. As hard as you try, you will never get to any of the hollow points. (The right-hand image might remind you of the reachable squares of the black bishop in chess.)
The lower equation a linear combination of the equations above.
![[Cueball and a White Hat are walking, Cueball holds both hands in front of him palms up.] Cueball: The great thing about digital data is that it never degrades. [They walk on in the next panel which shows jpeg compression artifacts, as if the image had been converted from png format to a lossy jpeg format.] Cueball: Hard drives fail, of course, but their bits can be copied forever without loss. [They continue walking in the third panel which is now clearly pixelated, the white is slightly discolored, and it contains part of the interface of some program, probably supposed to be a screen shot from a smartphone. At the bottom there are three blue buttons and one gray. the first is a blue "<" indicating back in a browser. Then a grayed out ">" that is not active. And then three more standard buttons in blue to the right of those two. The interface matches that of an iPhone running Safari in iOS 9 (or other versions with the same Safari UI (probably iOS 7-9))] Cueball: Film degrades, paint cracks, but a copy of a century-old data file is identical to the original. [Still walking, now Cueball holds out both arms to the sides, and finally White Hat replies. This panel is heavily pixelated and discolored and has a distorted aspect ratio. It contains a clear watermark of 9GAG (although difficult to read all letters in the end of the first word), even more 'frame' elements, and text above the image at the bottom (where the last letter is obscured by the frame of the image). There is also an internet address at the bottom left, but it is not readable except for the .tumblr.com ending. In this panel it is clear that it is a screen shot from a smart phone. The frame around the image obscure the very top of Cueball's text and the half of the last letter in White Hat's reply.] Cueball: If humanity has a permanent record, we are the first generation in it. White Hat: Amazing Watermark: Screenshotpro 2 Watermark: ~Unregistered~ Top border: Verizon LTE 4:45 PM Bottom text [slightly cut off]: 9GAG Internet address at the bottom [nearly unintelligible]: [ama].tumblr.com](https://marcel-waldvogel.ch/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/digital_data.png "[Cueball and a White Hat are walking, Cueball holds both hands in front of him palms up.] Cueball: The great thing about digital data is that it never degrades. [They walk on in the next panel which shows jpeg compression artifacts, as if the image had been converted from png format to a lossy jpeg format.] Cueball: Hard drives fail, of course, but their bits can be copied forever without loss. [They continue walking in the third panel which is now clearly pixelated, the white is slightly discolored, and it contains part of the interface of some program, probably supposed to be a screen shot from a smartphone. At the bottom there are three blue buttons and one gray. the first is a blue \"<\" indicating back in a browser. Then a grayed out \">\" that is not active. And then three more standard buttons in blue to the right of those two. The interface matches that of an iPhone running Safari in iOS 9 (or other versions with the same Safari UI (probably iOS 7-9))] Cueball: Film degrades, paint cracks, but a copy of a century-old data file is identical to the original. [Still walking, now Cueball holds out both arms to the sides, and finally White Hat replies. This panel is heavily pixelated and discolored and has a distorted aspect ratio. It contains a clear watermark of 9GAG (although difficult to read all letters in the end of the first word), even more 'frame' elements, and text above the image at the bottom (where the last letter is obscured by the frame of the image). There is also an internet address at the bottom left, but it is not readable except for the .tumblr.com ending. In this panel it is clear that it is a screen shot from a smart phone. The frame around the image obscure the very top of Cueball's text and the half of the last letter in White Hat's reply.] Cueball: If humanity has a permanent record, we are the first generation in it. White Hat: Amazing Watermark: Screenshotpro 2 Watermark: ~Unregistered~ Top border: Verizon LTE 4:45 PM Bottom text [slightly cut off]: 9GAG Internet address at the bottom [nearly unintelligible]: [ama].tumblr.com")
Overview of the elements of the Bitcoin blockchain. On the left, the actual chain, a concatenation of blocks. Each block (center) contains, in particular, a list of transactions (right).
First stamped loose-leaf
Second loose-leaf with copy of the first
Third loose-leaf with copy of the second, on which the first is also visible
The blockchain as stacked Lego blocks
Each block is unique (especially its end plate)
The next block must have the matching holes, otherwise stacking will fail
Probably the best-known examples of self-organization
A network to bind them all
This so-called d100 (or “Percentile dice”)
Our notaries incessantly drop 120 sextillion stamps from the ISS
Collapse of mining rate in China (yellow) after de facto ban on cryptocurrencies (Image: CBECI).
Finding a matching replacement block is “impossible”
Timeline of committee activity for Proof of Stake (PoS)
Sometimes, there be more than one (simultaneous) new block
Image source: Alan T. Sherman, Farid Javani, Haibin Zhang, and Enis Golaszewski: On the Origins and Variations of Blockchain Technologies, IEEE Security & Privacy, Jan/Feb 2019
Not all three at once
Everything becomes easier if you can omit one of them (see enumeration)
Are the expensive extras really necessary?
Misapplied security mechanisms, including blockchain, are a daunting obstacle for the good guys, but no protection against the bad guys. (Image source unknown)
Possible decision diagram for Blockchain decisions according to DHS S&TD. (Image source: Recreation of NIST IR 8202: Blockchain Technology Overview, 2018; p. 42, PDF page 53)
Revision control in a project. In DVCS, the numbers in the versions are unique hashes, not sequential numbers.
Bei PoH sind die Hashes nicht mehr parallelisierbar
PoH könnte man auch als lückenhafte Mini-Blockchain ansehen
Die Datenschutzeinstellung bei Firefox, das zu deaktivierende Häkchen unter «Werbeeinstellungen für Websites» ist fett rot durchkreuzt. Erreichbar über «Menü → Einstellungen → Datenschutz & Sicherheit» (oder Eingabe von
cron
Als Antwort auf Plum • • •Is there a phobia for long words, too?
number associated with the beast in the Book of Revelation; either 666 or 616, depending on the manuscript
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)