Trustless feeds

[size=1.45em][font=verdana]I have a question about Broadcast. From reading the spec, it seems like there is a strong element of trust needed for a broadcast feed. Certainly if major bets are being made, any funny business in the feed would be something that needs to be prevented. However, I could see no such mechanis[/font][font=verdana]Is there a way to get trustless feeds for very standard things, eg. data from BTC blockchain, orderbooks from specific exchanges, etc.?[/font][/size]

[size=1.45em][font=verdana]I am envisioning a whole set of data feeds that are guaranteed to be reliable. If we can have that, then XCP will become a very safe place to trade crypto derivatives. Call and put options are sorely needed for some crypto business models, but the lack of liquidity in them make them very hard to get, plus currently requires trusting the option seller to be there when it comes time to exercise the option.I think there could be a whole set of meta-commands that counterpartyd can implement based on just a large set of standard put/call options for all the assets that have realtime public datafeeds[/font][/size]

[size=1.45em][font=verdana]James[/font][/size]

It seems what needs to happen is that certain trusted companies and organizations begin publishing PGP-signed data in feeds, which the bet makers can specify in the bets and the winners can use to redeem their winnings. These will involve trust. Only data directly from a blockchain doesn’t involve trust.

What we need is trusted oracles. Weather.com could easily publish its data in PGP-signed feeds and have their PGP key on their website. So could nasa.gov, nfl.com, etc.

Maybe https://www.realitykeys.com/ is a match?


There is a good discussion on this topic http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/31/what-would-a-trusted-data-feed-look-like

[quote author=dropkick link=topic=19.msg829#msg829 date=1393257332]
Maybe https://www.realitykeys.com/ is a match?


There is a good discussion on this topic http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/31/what-would-a-trusted-data-feed-look-like
[/quote]


wow this is awesome. i don’t yet understand how this works precisely but looks very promising from the website.

[quote author=kordova link=topic=19.msg1907#msg1907 date=1397474303]
[font=verdana]If weather.com want to broadcast a feed there’s no need for PGP. Only the owner of the feed address can publish there, so they just need to publish the address on their web site.[/font]
[/quote]


But wouldn’t we want to make sure feed is signed and not spoofed (DNS redirection, MTM, etc.)?
Theoretically speaking.

The only way to have a ‘trustless’ feed, would be what’s envisioned with the Etheruem scripting system as I understand it, but once that’s automated you can’t error correct it either, and unless your posting blockchain meta-data there is no way to guarantee the data will always be quaryble / or correct. 

I’d read about that and because of the shortcoming you mentioned I somehow find “secure” trusted feeds to be a good approach for many situations.


Do you think it’d make sense to transfer one’s bet to a trusted feed provider who would be authorized to decide and transfer bet ownership to the original owner?
I wonder if that would make sense if it can’t be self-described within the XCP system.