Today, like the past few days, we have had some downtime. Apparently some script kids are enjoying themselves by targeting our server (and others). Sorry for the inconvenience.
Most of these ‘attacks’ are targeted at the database, but some are more ddos-like and can be mitigated by using a CDN. Some other Lemmy servers are using Cloudflare, so we know that works. Therefore we have chosen Cloudflare as CDN / DDOS protection platform for now. We will look into other options, but we needed something to be implemented asap.
For the other attacks, we are using them to investigate and implement measures like rate limiting etc.
Chances are that you’re being sarcastic, but in the event you’re not or if others want to learn…
Interesting tech. Almost zero practically useful applications.
Blockchains are effectively reproducible, verifiable ledger systems. But if the ledger grows infinitely, your storage and compute costs also grow infinitely. I’ve heard this has been solved, but I haven’t seen an implementation yet. (If anyone knows of one, please share!)
Another issue is the proofing system. Bitcoin uses proof of work, which means you need to do more computational work to produce new blocks on the chain. If the computational work grows, that means you need more and more powerful computers. This means increased cost which means centralization as participants with less money to pay for compute get pushed out. Alternatively, there’s proof of stake, where having some amount of a token or some similar value/stake allows you to write new blocks. This does reduce the computation cost but still causes those with lots of tokens/stake to get even more tokens/stake, which in turn allows them to spend more for new blocks… which creates a loop towards centralization.
So basically, the technology that preaches decentralization naturally centralizes in practical use over time.