What NPM should do to stop a new colors attack

Re:What NPM should do to stop a new colors attack by howdydoo on Monday January 10, 2022 @12:34PM (#29878337)

A blockchain isn't needed for that. Authentication needs "crypto"graphy, but not "crypto"currency.

This wouldn't be a complete thread without someone mentioning Rust, so I'll do it. cargo-crev is a nice web-of-trust type code review system for Rust crates. https://github.com/crev-dev/cargo-crev

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Re:What NPM should do to stop a new colors attack by awinter-py on Monday January 10, 2022 @12:41PM (#29878455)

I swear I'm not normally this person but I think if 'web of trust' means a database that is replicated in parts across many different computers and uses cryptographic signing to authenticate messages, you're describing the thing known to the bros and the gen-Zs as a blockchain

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Re:What NPM should do to stop a new colors attack by howdydoo on Monday January 10, 2022 @01:03PM (#29878813)

Web of trust just means "If A trusts B, and B trusts C, then A trusts C." Nothing to do with distributed databases/ledgers.

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Re:What NPM should do to stop a new colors attack by mctaylor on Monday January 10, 2022 @04:07PM (#29882483)

Blockchain refers specifically to a linked-list-like data structure which utilizes cryptographic hashes at each node to store an authentication of the tail of the list on each head (node). If you have a similar structure using trees, it's a merkle tree. Replication + message signing does not imply either (necessarily).

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Re:What NPM should do to stop a new colors attack by Aea on Monday January 10, 2022 @12:53PM (#29878649)

"Web of Trust" predates Cryptocurrency / Blockchain by decades.

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Re:What NPM should do to stop a new colors attack by simlevesque on Monday January 10, 2022 @12:53PM (#29878644)

A blockchain and a cryptocurrency are two different things.

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