Community Discussion Highlights
Attenuation and Caveats
The question: Can Gordian Clubs support caveats like expiration times?
The answer:
- Pure autonomous mode: No external event conditionals (deterministic only)
- With oracles: Yes, but loses autonomy
- Timestamp servers
- Blockchain time-locks (valid until block N is spent)
- Prediction markets (conditional on market resolution)
- Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs): “Valid when computation complete”
- Not clock-based but computation-based
- 10 days of VDF computation = proof of time passage
- Hardware-aware, anti-parallel proof of work
Risk-adaptive access control example: “You can read this document unless the US is at war with Canada” - requires external oracle.
Revocation Mechanisms
Current approach:
- Read revocation: Don’t include party in next edition’s permits
- Write revocation: Don’t include party in FROST signing quorum
- SSKR revocation: Don’t distribute shares to party
- Once revealed, keys/shares can’t be “un-revealed” (mathematical permanence)
Future possibilities:
- External oracles for revocation lists (loses autonomy)
- Time-locked transactions on blockchains
- Decentralized oracle networks
- Integration with Ryan Grant’s DID method using time-locks
CRDTs and Distributed Systems
Opportunity identified: Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types could be excellent fit for serverless Gordian Clubs.
Wolf’s response: Long-time interest in CRDTs with Gordian Envelopes as carrier. No experimentation yet but eager to collaborate.
Potential: Offline-first, eventually consistent replication without central coordination aligns perfectly with autonomous object philosophy.
UX and Communication (Gordon Mohr)
Challenges:
- Command-line tools are proof-of-concept, need better UX for broader adoption
- Analogies help communication:
- Clubs state like proof-of-stake blockchain
- Edition progression like Git versioning
- Need to visualize objects for non-CLI users
Existing UX work:
- Gordian Seed Tool (iOS app) shows UX-driven approach
- LifeHash, byte words, byte emojis for recognition
- Object identifier blocks for standardized display
Need: Better demos showing how it looks/feels beyond command line.
Use Cases and Human Rights
Christopher’s priorities:
- Journalist/activist protection: Provenance marks appear as random numbers, hard to identify
- AMIRA engagement model: Protect developers creating activism software
- Infrastructure resilience: Work during internet outages, infrastructure failures
- Long-term archival: Outlive companies and governments
Real-world concern: Computer scientist detained at Istanbul airport (2025) highlights risks for developers in adversarial environments.
Funding landscape: Government funding for decentralized identity projects declining, need community support and corporate partnerships.