Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
bitcoinmagazine.com
Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
1–10 of 76 posts
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#2Page isn't loading for me :/ cache for anyone else hitting this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WsX8NCw...
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edit: tl;dr of it all is:
1) addresses are hashes of public keys, not public keys themselves, so you can't really figure out the private key even with magic / quantum computing.
2) 21 million BTC * 100 million divisions = 2.1 quadrillion 3) elliptic curve chosen wasn't one of the dubious NIST ones.
The article is pretty well written, IMO, and does a reasonable job explaining why these are issues in the first place, and how it avoids them. Probably worth a read unless you grok it all from the tl;dr, and even then since it might help you explain things to others.
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#3Who created Bitcoin?
This comment seems to offer many clues: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547590
There are two groups that are on the suspects list for having engendered bitcoin, one group centers around Trinity College, another is a bunch of loosely affiliated international collaborators. Both groups are on the record with precursors to bitcoin (papers, software), neither has admitted openly that they were the ones.
Along with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5548093
Investigations into the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto have been attempted by The New Yorker and Fast Company. Fast Company's investigation brought up circumstantial evidence that indicated a link between an encryption patent application filed by Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry on 15 August 2008, and the bitcoin.org domain name which was registered 72 hours later. The patent application (#20100042841) contained networking and encryption technologies similar to bitcoin's. After textual analysis, the phrase "...computationally impractical to reverse" was found in both the patent application and bitcoin's whitepaper. All three inventors explicitly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto.
Anyone care to speculate whether it's more likely the creators were based in Trinity College rather than being international collaborators?
It's interesting that the controller of the Satoshi persona managed to stay anonymous for so long. I wonder if they were careful to only write forum posts via Tor? Otherwise their IP address might've been logged. An IP address would be enough for an ISP to unmask them (or at least narrow down the suspect list quite a lot). Satoshi also made a lot of source code commits, which seems like another way their IP address could leak.
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#4Who created Bitcoin? This comment seems to offer many clues: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547590 There are two groups that are on the suspects list for having engendered bitcoin, one group centers around Trinity College, another is a bunch of loosely affiliated international collaborators. Both groups are on the record with precursors to bitcoin (papers, software), neither has admitted openly that they were…
>All three inventors explicitly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto
Obviously if the inventor was not a single person, but the result of a group effort, one could truthfully reply that they were not the inventor.
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#5Who created Bitcoin? This comment seems to offer many clues: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547590 There are two groups that are on the suspects list for having engendered bitcoin, one group centers around Trinity College, another is a bunch of loosely affiliated international collaborators. Both groups are on the record with precursors to bitcoin (papers, software), neither has admitted openly that they were…
> All three inventors explicitly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto Obviously if the inventor was not a single person, but the result of a group effort, one could truthfully reply that they were not the inventor.
Why would you even assume that they replied truthfully?
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#6This is the first article I've ever read that managed to explain cryptographical stuff in simple terms without making my head spin.
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#7Page isn't loading for me :/ cache for anyone else hitting this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WsX8NCw... -- edit: tl;dr of it all is: 1) addresses are hashes of public keys, not public keys themselves, so you can't really figure out the private key even with magic / quantum computing. 2) 21 million BTC * 100 million divisions = 2.1 quadrillion 3) elliptic curve chosen wasn't one of the dubious…
In essence, apart from 2, which wouldn't take too much hindsight to calculate, both items seem to be the work of a real expert in crypto.
Not the ones that go for the "proven" way "because NIST said so" or the "internet specialists" that cry wolf more often than not (and miss or even suggest security holes)
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#8Page isn't loading for me :/ cache for anyone else hitting this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WsX8NCw... -- edit: tl;dr of it all is: 1) addresses are hashes of public keys, not public keys themselves, so you can't really figure out the private key even with magic / quantum computing. 2) 21 million BTC * 100 million divisions = 2.1 quadrillion 3) elliptic curve chosen wasn't one of the dubious…
In essence, apart from 2, which wouldn't take too much hindsight to calculate, both items seem to be the work of a real expert in crypto. Not the ones that go for the "proven" way "because NIST said so" or the "internet specialists" that cry wolf more often than not (and miss or even suggest security holes)
Not really. The original bitcoin client did what was called direct-to-IP transactions, which didn't use hashed pubkeys, and which was vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks (oops).
Bitcoin's ECDSA curve was chosen because it was one of the faster ones, not because of any NIST connection (a "real" cryptographer of the day would have probably advised against the secp256k1 curve used in bitcoin in favor of one of the NIST curves, or DJB's curve which is superior in just about every way.
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#9Besides 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).
Re: Unexpected Ways in which Bitcoin Dodged Some Cryptographic Bullets
#10Page isn't loading for me :/ cache for anyone else hitting this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WsX8NCw... -- edit: tl;dr of it all is: 1) addresses are hashes of public keys, not public keys themselves, so you can't really figure out the private key even with magic / quantum computing. 2) 21 million BTC * 100 million divisions = 2.1 quadrillion 3) elliptic curve chosen wasn't one of the dubious…
In essence, apart from 2, which wouldn't take too much hindsight to calculate, both items seem to be the work of a real expert in crypto. Not the ones that go for the "proven" way "because NIST said so" or the "internet specialists" that cry wolf more often than not (and miss or even suggest security holes)
1 is a little hokey because in the common case, the hash is just a weakness -- it doesn't add any security against classical computers, for which ECDSA is already hard enough, and it opens the possibility of hash collisions.
I say "common case" because it only really is a win if _both_ quantum computers are in use _and_ you've never spent from the wallet and never will (except possibly to cash out entirely).