It failed because an “immutable cryptographic proof” that the information being represented is valid is about as useful as a handwritten certificate that says you own Sagittarius.
Cryptography cannot verify your ownership of Sagittarius; it is not an authority. It cannot prevent you from claiming you do, either: anybody can enter whatever they want into the system.
And funny enough, this cryptographic lock and key isn’t even undisputable. If you have a dated record from 2020, and someone else wants it, they can just verify theirs on a different chain. Who is to say which chain is “more correct”? The dates? Dates don’t matter. If you were unlucky enough not to publish your work before someone else does, you don’t cryptographically own your work. If you were lucky and you had published, someone else can just lie that they weren’t ready and you stole it from them. So, even with all of our fancy math, we’re still back to he-said, she-said.
Worse, most blockchain records I know of are way too small for images, let alone video, so all they do is cryptographically “verify” URLs to the work. What exactly is the point of this? Can the files served by these URLs not simply be… changed?
I know they can be changed because C2PA has this very same, exact problem.
The blockchain is, at best, a database. The fact that it’s public doesn’t mean anything—it might be worse, even.
Why bother reinventing all of this? We have institutions already that keep records. What social good is bought from having the most public of all records?
Great response on why NFTs are lame for what most are being used for.
I play some blockchain games where the NFT represents digital items, and the only real use case for it being on blockchain is having the marketplace to trade in game items for money. And that doesn’t even need to be blockchain, it’s like an overengineered steam marketplace.
The way NFTs are currently impliented is just down right dumb haha. And their stupidity hurts blockchain’s image and puts so much mud in the water when it comes to people understanding the tech. Add all the greedy people who try to exploit that confusion and the whole thing gets really ugly really fast.
Sadly this all then becomes the focus and its all people seem to see when they try and understand the tech.
The use case here is proof of origin and history not ownership of a hosted file. You can’t directly apply NFTs to this.
The verification of hashes of files is the point. You want to be able to say “this video I’m watching was unaltered and signed by source X who has a verifiable reputation of providing data which has been verified by other entities who also have been verified”. You don’t store the media on the block chain.
Again the key here is that its a reputation system. Everything in life comes down to he said she said. But having perminant history of what they said and the evidence used is what allows you to weight the claims. Or yes, you could just pick one entity to tell you want to believe…
I would argue public records are a utility in their own right. But the point is that if you allow an institution to hold all the records they decide which ones can be seen and have ability to manipulate the truth. I realize that many Lemmy users seem to be fine with that but IMO your just picking and agreeing with your chosen leader at that point. A free open and transparent system of reputation that is not controlled by anyone ensures access to information for everyone while hindering the ability of bad actors to manipulate the " truth".
I find the “we already have people who keep history for us” argument odd. Sure, we do. But then is it really an issue to have another open system along side them? What cost is it to you? Why be opposed to multiple ways to try and achieve a goal? I’m not saying traditional organizations should not exist. I’m saying this tech provides a pretty rubust solution and should be taken seriously.
Anyways I know we arnt going to agree. But I wanted to put my argument here for anyone reading.
Its always worth exploring multiple solutions to a problem.
Blockchain is a synchronization and consensus mechanism that provides an authoritative record. None of your issues are unique to blockchains if multi possible authorities exist they way have conflicting rules and records. Blockchains just allow the addition of new entities and users without the traditional costs and scaling issues of existing organization is.
