Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
1–10 of 162 posts
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#2Second Preimage Resistance is important with most cryptocurrencies based off bitcoin because they are often calculated as a hash of a hash, which is what second preimage resistance is all about preventing predicting.
In this case, the `curl` function is not being used as a hash function, but a different type of mapping. Unfortunately, that mapping is supposed to be psuedo-random and now it is known that it is not.
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#3> I can't get a single reply from you, looks like you put me on ignore on Twitter. I don't
blame you, sometimes I'm pretty annoying, I spend too much time with computers and
lack some skills required for proper interaction with humans.
That says it all.
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#4Confirming basically everything I already suspected about IOTA -- don't trust anything crypto related that's not written by a professional. "You're gonna have a bad time."
[Edit to add this plug for Zcash! Made with real cryptographers]
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#5Second Preimage Resistance is important with most cryptocurrencies based off bitcoin because they are often calculated as a hash of a hash, which is what second preimage resistance is all about preventing predicting. In this case, the `curl` function is not being used as a hash function, but a different type of mapping. Unfortunately, that mapping is supposed to be psuedo-random and now it is known that it is not.
How would using the hash of a hash strengthen the property of second preimage resistance? The space of all possible hashes is still 2^256. The only impact I see is that the cost of computing a hash is doubled.
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#6Without reading reams of stuff over my head, why is this interesting?
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#7Confirming basically everything I already suspected about IOTA -- don't trust anything crypto related that's not written by a professional. "You're gonna have a bad time." [Edit to add this plug for Zcash! Made with real cryptographers ]
One priceless line from Ethan Heilman to support that observation: Probably best not to use informal stackoverflow answers and Wikipedia for understanding the security of your system.
Yowza.
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#8Second Preimage Resistance is important with most cryptocurrencies based off bitcoin because they are often calculated as a hash of a hash, which is what second preimage resistance is all about preventing predicting. In this case, the `curl` function is not being used as a hash function, but a different type of mapping. Unfortunately, that mapping is supposed to be psuedo-random and now it is known that it is not.
The "second" in "second preimage" doesn't refer to hashing something twice. It means that you already have one preimage for a hash (presumably because you started with the "preimage" and calculated the hash from that), and you want to find a second, different one.
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#9Without reading reams of stuff over my head, why is this interesting?
Basically they are claiming one of the core primitives to make IOTA work as a secure cryptocurrency is fundamentally flawed. Haven't read enough but if this is what it sounds like, it means IOTA needs a major rework.
I mean what did you expect from a weird shitcoin that uses trinary arithmetic (really?) for no good reason.
edit: letter #11 says "shit's fucked, yo".
Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]
#10Without reading reams of stuff over my head, why is this interesting?
IOTA rolled their own crypto. As they were warned by many in and out of the crypto (in both senses of the word) communities at the time, it was susceptible to attack. MIT Media Lab wrote a responsible disclosure report on a vulnerability. IOTA kept pushing back the publication date, based on a mixture of amateur cryptography arguments and nitpicking over disclosure issues. MIT Media Lab finally published, well after the originally agreed deadline, after realizing IOTA was not serious about improving the code further and was using the time to attempt to improve their appearance in the disclosure report's narrative. IOTA got upset, as this publication exposed them with their pants down. They've now threatened the involved academics with legal action. (There is, of course, no actionable basis for such.)
It is interesting if you find cryptocurrencies interesting, as it shows how "well" run many are - and IOTA is by no means an outlier here. The foundations are simply not lousy with cryptography, programming and economics experts who are solely interested in best practices.