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Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

bitcoinmagazine.com

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Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#31

Post by throwhalloween »

gd1 wrote: post #29
daniel-levin wrote: post #20

> As a result, most of the decisions that Satoshi Nakamoto made in 2008 we are essentially stuck with. Every single time I read something about what 'Satoshi Nakamoto' did in designing, implementing and securing Bitcoin, I grow more skeptical that one person, or even a small group of people, created Bitcoin. It is very difficult to believe that something this sophisticated was developed by anyone other than a well fi…

>very difficult to believe that something this sophisticated was developed by anyone other than a well financed, possibly nation-state backed organisation. Hilarious. A "well financed, nation-state backed organisation" just gave us the Obamacare website.

The same nation-state successfully operates the largest military organization in the world without accidentally detonating any nuclear bombs.

It doesn't all have to be ACA websites.

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#32

Post by mrb »

throwhalloween wrote: post #30
mrb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say points #1 through #4 promote the theory that Satoshi is a single person. The more persons would be behind the Satoshi identity, the more chances there would be for mistakes or leaks: one of them spending/stealing the BTC, one of them boasting about the secret Bitcoin project, or revealing it while intoxicated at a party, etc.

That's a fairly normal response but you're basically acting like a conspiracy nut. This doesn't have to be some crazy story. There's the means, the motive, and the opportunity to create Bitcoin. Why would a lone actor be so motivated to keep their identity a secret? We obviously disagree.

Honestly, "the NSA or some secret group with a PR agency created Bitcoin" sounds more like a conspiracy theory than "a lone programmer wanted to experiment with ideas of a peer-to-peer currency"...

There are 2 simple reasons why Satoshi would want to remain anonymous:

#1 He is estimated to own ~1 million BTC ($200 million); many thieves would capture/torture/murder someone for the chance to steal that amount!

#2 Sometimes people just want anonymity by default, like you who posts anonymously for no apparent reason ;)

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#33

Post by vbuterin »

snitko wrote: post #23
daniel-levin wrote: post #20

> As a result, most of the decisions that Satoshi Nakamoto made in 2008 we are essentially stuck with. Every single time I read something about what 'Satoshi Nakamoto' did in designing, implementing and securing Bitcoin, I grow more skeptical that one person, or even a small group of people, created Bitcoin. It is very difficult to believe that something this sophisticated was developed by anyone other than a well fi…

So how come Bitcoin is so fundamentally opposed to the concept of state and regulations then? Doesn't make any sense. Where's the catch?

The same way Tor is fundamentally opposed to the concept of regulations on speech but is still funded ~60% by the US military. The US government sees the cost of itself losing some control as worth it to deny China control.

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#34

Post by eru »

Luc wrote: post #27
simias wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a very dull programming class...

Yeah, motivating students was not part of their job description. It was all rather backward, and I expect many professors saw it as a way of weeding out the unworthy (here's a bunch of very abstract math, study this for months but we won't tell you why it's important to know as a physicist).

Floating point arithmetic is some of the least abstract math. (That doesn't make it more interesting without the right background and mindset, though.)

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#35

Post by brainburn »

> Thus, if your Bitcoin funds are stored in an address that you have not spent from (so the public key is unknown), they are safe against a quantum computer – at least until you try to spend them.

Uhm, no such thing? Every mined bitcoin is instantly sent to an address

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#36

Post by applecore »

simondlr wrote: post #9

Besides dodging bullets, it amazes me that Satoshi had the foresight to include a scripting language into the outputs of transactions, envisioning a future where contracts could be built onto the blockchain. For a proof-of-concept, Bitcoin didn't need it. It could've just supported the ability for owners of addresses to claim outputs (in a hard-coded manner).

Pretty good explanation of the motivation behind scripts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#37

Post by Luc »

eru wrote: post #34
Luc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, motivating students was not part of their job description. It was all rather backward, and I expect many professors saw it as a way of weeding out the unworthy (here's a bunch of very abstract math, study this for months but we won't tell you why it's important to know as a physicist).

Floating point arithmetic is some of the least abstract math. (That doesn't make it more interesting without the right background and mindset, though.)

True, I wasn't clear I guess, but I was trying to say that not explaining WHY we had to learn something was a general feature of my university education, e.g. group theory in the case of math. They just put us physics students with the math students and we were expected to be motivated by the pure fun of learning math. If I had known how much group theory gets used in physics, I'd have put in more effort.

Same thing with the IEEE standard, it's not hard, but it was presented in a dull way, all theory.

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#38

Post by yafujifide »

brainburn wrote: post #35

> Thus, if your Bitcoin funds are stored in an address that you have not spent from (so the public key is unknown), they are safe against a quantum computer – at least until you try to spend them. Uhm, no such thing? Every mined bitcoin is instantly sent to an address

No, freshly mined bitcoins are never 'sent' anywhere - they just appear in the mining address. Thus, the public key is not revealed until they are sent.

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#39

Post by npongratz »

throwhalloween wrote: post #31
gd1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>very difficult to believe that something this sophisticated was developed by anyone other than a well financed, possibly nation-state backed organisation. Hilarious. A "well financed, nation-state backed organisation" just gave us the Obamacare website.

The same nation-state successfully operates the largest military organization in the world without accidentally detonating any nuclear bombs. It doesn't all have to be ACA websites.

> The same nation-state successfully operates the largest military organization in the world without accidentally detonating any nuclear bombs.

But this same large military organization did come "dramatically close", as "only one low-voltage switch" prevented what would have been an atomic explosion in North Carolina in 1961:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bom...

Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets

#40

Post by betterunix »

daniel-levin wrote: post #20

> As a result, most of the decisions that Satoshi Nakamoto made in 2008 we are essentially stuck with. Every single time I read something about what 'Satoshi Nakamoto' did in designing, implementing and securing Bitcoin, I grow more skeptical that one person, or even a small group of people, created Bitcoin. It is very difficult to believe that something this sophisticated was developed by anyone other than a well fi…

"Every single time I read something about what 'Satoshi Nakamoto' did in designing, implementing and securing Bitcoin, I grow more skeptical that one person, or even a small group of people, created Bitcoin. It is very difficult to believe that something this sophisticated was developed by anyone other than a well financed, possibly nation-state backed organisation."

Really, you think Bitcoin is that sophisticated? Can you even point to any clearly stated requirements, constraints, or security definition? The original Bitcoin paper did not even describe the system well enough for someone else to implement it; half the specification of the data formats was in the code itself. Nevermind the bad design; the original Bitcoin paper somehow failed to mention or even hint at (or even use the concepts from) the massive body of related work.

All the evidence points to Bitcoin being the work of an amateur, just one hobbyist who hacked together a system based on an idea he had. My guess is that it was a college student who was fascinated by cryptography and had read a few books. This is not necessarily bad -- the same is true of the Linux kernel, after all -- but to claim that Bitcoin is some kind of highly sophisticated system that must have been the work of a government team is just silly.

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