OpenBazaar with Brian Hoffman
Nov 08, 2017
Show notes
Cryptocurrencies give us a decentralized financial system. OpenBazaar is a decentralized commerce system.
A merchant can log onto OpenBazaar and post a listing for an item–for example, a t-shirt that I want to sell for $15. My item listing will spread throughout the OpenBazaar P2P network. A shopper can download the OpenBazaar desktop application and see my listing for a t-shirt. The shopper can pay me $15 in bitcoin, and I will send the t-shirt to their address.
If I were selling that shirt on Amazon, the corporation would take a cut of that transaction. OpenBazaar has no transaction costs–so users get to save some money. However, users also miss out on the benefits of a corporate marketplace.
Amazon makes sure that the seller will send the item to the buyer, and makes sure that the buyer pays the seller. On OpenBazaar, an escrow system is needed to place money in the hands of a neutral third party until the goods are delivered. Amazon ensures that the distributor sends the item to the customer. On OpenBazaar, users need to figure out how to send the goods to each other.
Brian Hoffman was the first developer to start working on OpenBazaar. The project has grown significantly since his initial commit, and OpenBazaar now has buyers, sellers, and open source committers. There is a clear desire for an open system of commerce. Brian is also the CEO of OB1, a company that provides services on top of OpenBazaar. OpenBazaar is a protocol–and other companies will undoubtedly emerge to build on top of it as well.
In our conversation, Brian discussed how OpenBazaar works–the peer-to-peer protocol, the escrow system, the dispute resolution, and the open source community management. It is a fascinating, unique project, and I hope you learn something about it from this episode.
To find all of our old episodes about decentralized technology and blockchains, you can download the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS and for Android. In other podcast players, you can only access the most recent 100 episodes. With these apps, we are building a new way to consume content about software engineering. They are open-sourced at github.com/softwareengineeringdaily. If you are looking for an open source project to get involved with, we would love to get your help.
Shout out to today’s featured open source contributor Justin Lam. He has been working on improving the iOS codebase, and I know all the SE Daily mobile users appreciate his effort. Thanks Justin!
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
Cryptoeconomics with Vlad Zamfir
Oct 28, 2017
Show notes
A cryptocurrency has a distributed ledger called a blockchain. The blockchain keeps track of every transaction that occurs across the cryptocurrency. This blockchain must stay up-to-date and verified–which requires someone in the network to do that validation.
Bitcoin and Ethereum use the proof-of-work algorithm. Miners do computational work to validate the legitimacy of transactions across the network, and in return they are given cryptocurrency as a reward for that computational work.
In the future, cryptocurrencies could move towards a proof-of-stake model. If you own a significant amount of cryptocurrency, you have incentive to keep the validity of the blockchain up to date. Proof-of-stake algorithms can be significantly less energy intensive.
Vlad Zamfir is a researcher for the Ethereum Foundation, and he joins Haseeb Qureshi for a conversation about cryptoeconomics. This is an in-depth conversation between two active blockchain developers. We hope you enjoy it.
You can send us feedback on the show by emailing me jeff@softwareengineeringdaily.com or joining us on the Slack channel at softwareengineeringdaily.com/slack.
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
Smart Contract Security with Emin Gün Sirer
Oct 20, 2017
Show notes
A smart contract is a program that allows for financial transactions. Smart contracts are usually associated with the Ethereum platform, which has a language called Solidity that makes it easy to program smart contracts. Someday, we will have smart contracts issuing insurance, processing legal claims, and executing accounting transactions.
Smart contracts involve money, and they are likely to transact with cryptocurrencies. That makes them ripe targets for attackers. What are the vulnerabilities of smart contracts? What can we do to ensure the safety of a high throughput, automated financial system?
In today’s episode, Haseeb Qureshi talks to Emin Gün Sirer, a professor at Cornell University where he is co-director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts. They discuss how smart contracts work and how to secure them. Haseeb and Emin are both working full-time on cryptocurrencies, which makes for a detailed technical discussion.
In our previous episode about the DAO hack, Emin Gün Sirer was one of the protagonists of the story. You can find that episode as well as all of our old episodes by downloading the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS and for Android. We also have several other episodes with Haseeb.
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
Blockchain Building with Daniel van Flymen
Oct 12, 2017
Show notes
A blockchain is a data structure that provides decentralized, peer-to-peer data distribution. Bitcoin is the most well-known blockchain, but in the next decade we will see many more blockchains. Most listeners probably know that you could just fork the code of Bitcoin to start your own blockchain–but wouldn’t it be nice to know how to build a blockchain from scratch?
Daniel van Flymen is the author of the Medium article Learn Blockchains by Building One. In his post, he walks you through how to write the code for a blockchain–just like any other web app. He starts with raw Python code, defines the data structures, and stands up his simple blockchain app on a web server to give a toy example for how nodes in a blockchain communicate.
For me, this was a great article to read. I have reported on blockchains for over a year, but had not seen such a clear example with executable, simplified code.
Stay tuned at the end of the episode for Jeff Meyerson’s tip about making the most of a new job: brought to you by Indeed Prime.
To find all of our coverage of cryptocurrencies, download the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS or Android to hear all of our old episodes. They are easily organized by category, and as you listen, the SE Daily app gets smarter, and recommends you content based on the episodes you are hearing. If you don’t like this episode, you can easily find something more interesting by using the recommendation system.
The mobile apps are open sourced at github.com/softwareengineeringdaily. If you are looking for an open source project to hack on, we would love to get your help! We are building a new way to consume software engineering content. We have the Android app, the iOS app, a recommendation system, and a web frontend–and more projects are coming soon. If you have ideas for how software engineering media content should be consumed, or if you are interested in contributing code, check out github.com/softwareengineeringdaily, or join our Slack channel (there’s a link on our website)–or send me an email: jeff@softwareengineeringdaily.com
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
Ethereum Platform with Preethi Kasireddy
Oct 11, 2017
Show notes
Ethereum is a decentralized transaction-based state machine. Ethereum was designed to make smart contracts more usable for developers. Smart contracts are decentralized programs that usually allow for some a transaction between the owner of the contract and anyone who would want to purchase something from the contract owner.
For example, I could set up a smart contract where a listener sends my smart contract some ether and I send the listener a podcast episode automatically. Smart contracts can also interact with each other, to network together complex transactions. In the same way that web development has been made easier by PaaS and SaaS, smart contracts will make building financial systems simple.
Preethi Kasireddy is a blockchain developer who writes extensively about cryptocurrencies. She joins the show to describe how the Ethereum platform works, including the steps involved in a smart contract transaction. This episode covers some advanced topics of Ethereum, and if you are out of your comfort zone, don’t worry–you aren’t alone.
We have covered the basics of cryptocurrencies in detail, and we have also tackled more complex aspects of them in past episodes. Download the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS and Android to hear all of our old episodes. They are easily organized by category, and as you listen, the SE Daily app gets smarter, and recommends you content based on the episodes you are hearing. If you don’t like this episode, you can easily find something more interesting by using the recommendation system.
The mobile apps are open sourced at github.com/softwareengineeringdaily. If you are looking for an open source project to hack on, we would love to get your help! We are building a new way to consume software engineering content. We have the Android app, the iOS app, a recommendation system, and a web frontend–and more projects are coming soon. If you have ideas for how software engineering media content should be consumed, or if you are interested in contributing code, check out github.com/softwareengineeringdaily, or join our Slack channel (there’s a link on our website)–or send me an email: jeff@softwareengineeringdaily.com
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
Bitcoin Segwit with Jordan Clifford
Oct 10, 2017
Show notes
Visa processes 1,600 transactions per second. PayPal processes 193 transactions per second. Bitcoin processes only 3-4 transactions per second. In order to fulfill the dreams of financial programming–in order to get decentralized, peer-to-peer micropayments–Bitcoin needs a much higher transaction throughput. Bitcoin’s scalability issues have led to debates within the community and changes in the software.
In this episode, Jordan Clifford gives an overview of some of the scaling limitations of Bitcoin, and discusses SegWit, a change to the Bitcoin protocol that improves scalability. Jordan was previously on the show to discuss the basics of Ethereum and Bitcoin. This episode covers some advanced topics of Bitcoin, and if you are out of your comfort zone, don’t worry–you aren’t alone.
Stay tuned at the end of the episode for Jeff Meyerson’s tip about assessing cultural fit at a company: brought to you by Indeed Prime.
We have covered the basics of cryptocurrencies in detail, and we have also tackled more complex aspects of them in past episodes. Download the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS and Android to hear all of our old episodes. They are easily organized by category, and as you listen, the SE Daily app gets smarter, and recommends you content based on the episodes you are hearing. If you don’t like this episode, you can easily find something more interesting by using the recommendation system.
The mobile apps are open sourced at github.com/softwareengineeringdaily. If you are looking for an open source project to hack on, we would love to get your help! We are building a new way to consume software engineering content. We have the Android app, the iOS app, a recommendation system, and a web frontend–and more projects are coming soon. If you have ideas for how software engineering media content should be consumed, or if you are interested in contributing code, check out github.com/softwareengineeringdaily, or join our Slack channel (there’s a link on our website)–or send me an email: jeff@softwareengineeringdaily.com
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
Brave Browser with Jonathan Sampson
Sep 20, 2017
Show notes
Online advertising enables free content and services of the Internet. One of the free services that is powered by advertising is the browser. 60% of web browsing is done through Chrome, which is owned by Google, which is powered by advertising.
The application that most of us use to explore the web is made by a company that relies on ads, so it is unsurprising that the default of that browser is to allow close tracking of user behavior. When you hit a website, a variety of trackers are logging your data for the purpose of serving you better ads.
Some people don’t like ads, and they don’t like being tracked–but what is the alternative? How else can we get all the content we want? Since the 90’s, engineers have envisioned an Internet powered by micropayments. A micropayments system in your browser would allow users to pay for content with money instead of adtech.
Brave is a web browser built with a modern view of advertising, privacy, and economics. Brave users can pay for content with their money OR by paying attention to ads. This system is formalized through the Basic Attention Token (BAT), a cryptocurrency that can be used to purchase user attention.
Jonathan Sampson is a senior developer relations specialist with Brave Software. He joins the show to talk about the problems with the browsing experience and what Brave is doing to stop it.
If you like this episode, we have done many other shows about privacy, with guests like Bruce Schneier and Samy Kamkar. Download the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS to hear all of our old episodes, and easily discover new topics that might interest you. You can upvote the episodes you like and get recommendations based on your listening history. With 600 episodes, it is hard to find the episodes that appeal to you, and we hope the app helps with that.
DAO Hack with Matt Leising
Sep 11, 2017
Show notes
The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) was a digital form of venture capital. It was an ambitious idea–to provide a new decentralized business model for organizing corporations on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Few people in the crypto community were opposed to this premise–but the timeline was short, the code requirements were tremendous, and in retrospect, a vulnerability was inevitable.
The DAO launched in May 2016, setting the record for the largest crowdfunding event in history. The following month, the DAO was hacked, millions of dollars of Ether were stolen, and the reverberations of the event were a referendum on how the Ethereum community governs itself.
Matt Leising is a reporter for Bloomberg who has chronicled the DAO in his article The Ether Thief. He continues to follow cryptocurrencies closely, as the Internet of money fractals increasingly into the public consciousness.
If you like this episode, we have done many other shows about cryptocurrencies and their implications. You can check out our back catalog by downloading the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS, where you can listen to all of our old episodes, and easily discover new topics that might interest you. You can upvote the episodes you like and get recommendations based on your listening history. With 600 episodes, it is hard to find the episodes that appeal to you, and we hope the app helps with that.
Coinbase Security with Philip Martin
Jul 14, 2017
Show notes
At Coinbase, security is more important than anything else. Coinbase is a company that allows for storage and exchange of cryptocurrencies. Protecting banking infrastructure is difficult, but in some ways the stakes are higher with Coinbase, because bitcoin is fundamentally unregulated.
If a hacker were able to syphon all of the money out of Coinbase accounts, Coinbase would have no recourse–which means this is a more sensitive problem than the regulated banking system, where transactions can often be reversed.
Philip Martin is the director of security at Coinbase. He joins the show today to explain why his love of complex and high-stakes security challenges brought him to Coinbase. Philip has some specific points about Coinbase and some more abstract points about security that were very useful to me.
This is the third and final episode in our series about Coinbase. Our first two episodes covered the currencies of Coinbase and the fraud prevention techniques the company uses. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this series, and any other suggestions or feedback you have. Send me an email–jeff@softwareengineeringdaily.com
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
Coinbase Antifraud with Soups Ranjan
Jul 13, 2017
Show notes
Coinbase is a platform for buying and selling digital currency: bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin. Every payments company deals with fraud, but a cryptocurrency company has a harder job than most payments companies, because bitcoin transactions are anonymous and non-reversible. This is in contrast to a bank, which deals with a regulated, reversible transaction system.
Soups Ranjan is the director of data science at Coinbase. In this episode, he walks through the challenges of preventing fraud and describes how machine learning and humans in the loop are used to deal with bad actors. From the data ingestion to the data engineering to the data science, this episode is a great overview of antifraud at Coinbase, and is a nice complement to the presentation that we previously aired from Soups.
This is the second episode in our series about Coinbase. Yesterday we discussed how Coinbase makes cryptocurrencies easier to work with. Tomorrow we dive into the security infrastructure of Coinbase. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this series, and any other suggestions or feedback you have. Send me an email–jeff@softwareengineeringdaily.com
Transcript
Transcript provided by We Edit Podcasts. Software Engineering Daily listeners can go to weeditpodcasts.com/sed to get 20% off the first two months of audio editing and transcription services. Thanks to We Edit Podcasts for partnering with SE Daily. Please click here to view this show’s transcript.
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