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Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

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Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#71

Post by FullyFunctional »

loxias wrote: post #56
hatsunearu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love to see that paper; seems like nonsense to me. If someone came up with a more optimized transistor architecture than CMOS I'd love to have a look at it.

Oh! I remembered more details about it if it helps. It has to do with e being the "most efficient" numbering base. The reason e is the "most efficient" has to do with wanting to minimize both the size of the alphabet of symbols as well as the number of digits in an average computation. If you allow for a non-integer base, and a non-integer number of digits, the optimum base is e. e rounds to 3. ;-) Now, full disclosu…

Yeah, it's complete bullocks. Rest assured, if anything was better than binary for _logic_ then it would already have taken over the world. Binary have a lot of wonderful properties (not least noise immunity) and deserves a lot of credit for the success of modern technology. Note, the ENIAC wasn't binary! It was based on decimal.

However there are places where we look beyond binary; most notably in storage where data density is job one. The vast majority of FLASH is using MLC (4-values) or TLC (8-values) which need heroic circuits to recover the data. But note, these are 2^2 and 2^3, still binary based.

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#72

Post by eastWestMath »

loxias wrote: post #4

Confirming 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 ]

Smart contract languages are pretty funny - I have yet to see an actual programming language theorist weigh in on them. I read one blogger who was very excited about the type system he was making for his language, but he never actually explained what a type-safe smart contract would entail (i.e. what invariants are encoded into the type system, why do these invariants do the thing, etc).

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#73

Post by grzm »

sova wrote: post #70
curiousDog wrote: post #51

Fascinating read. I think we've all worked with a Sergey in our careers so far. And most of us end up doing what Ethan did.

I'm intrigued by your comment, I thought Sergey was also very thoughtful -- or are we not talking about the Sergey of google?

They're referring to Sergey Ivancheglo, one of the founders of IOTA.

http://untangled.world/iota-founders/

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#74

Post by sova »

mbgaxyz wrote: post #44

Interesting to see the range of opinions about IOTA. The conclusions on HN are (so far) completely at odds from those on the cryptocurrency subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7zztey/full... Meanwhile the commercial world seems happy to engage with IOTA: "Volkswagen CDO will join the supervisory board of the IOTA foundation. And now, Volkswagen is going to utilise this technology in their auto…

IOTA actually has status as an NGO in Germany which gives them a lot of credibility (clout?) and therefore companies are intrigued to start deals, but as an amateur cryptographer I must say that having hash derivatives leaking through your hash function [which has been known for a long time actually with IOTA!] is not the way to make a bulletproof currency. Coverups sadly don't make the protocol more robust, either, but so many people have an [in]vested interest in IOTA being successful that it makes sense they want to minimize FUD and/or flaw pointing-out.

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#75

Post by sova »

grzm wrote: post #73
sova wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm intrigued by your comment, I thought Sergey was also very thoughtful -- or are we not talking about the Sergey of google?

They're referring to Sergey Ivancheglo, one of the founders of IOTA. http://untangled.world/iota-founders/

Oh! thank you that makes a lot more sense.

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#76

Post by eastWestMath »

loxias wrote: post #13
IntronExon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know, right? I read through the whole exchange and kept thinking "How are they managing to be so polite, to these rank amateurs who show no respect?" I probably would have informed them of the flaw, informed them when I was publishing, informed of a suggested fix then piped all the rest to /dev/null. I also positively love the use of "push it to the limit".

It honestly gave me flashbacks to a few email chains I've had with students in my tutorials. It's really obvious when someone is asking for clarification but it's not in good faith

"Can you explain to me what you think I did wrong in my program? I can assure you everything is correct. Otherwise you're clearly drunk and out to get me."

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#77

Post by oldcynic »

mbgaxyz wrote: post #44

Interesting to see the range of opinions about IOTA. The conclusions on HN are (so far) completely at odds from those on the cryptocurrency subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7zztey/full... Meanwhile the commercial world seems happy to engage with IOTA: "Volkswagen CDO will join the supervisory board of the IOTA foundation. And now, Volkswagen is going to utilise this technology in their auto…

What to make of it?

IOTA are rolling their own cryptography which immediately makes me run the other way. At least until I see some respected peer review that it's sound. This exchange makes me think that unlikely at best.

Don't buy a Volkswagen until they have run the other way!

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#78

Post by emmelaich »

zby wrote: post #69
emmelaich wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're gonna have a bad time." A major wake-up call for me in the crypto currency world was Gavin Andresen's ludicrous "validation" of Colin Wright as Satoshi. When a so-called leader clearly does not even understand the basics you realise it's 98% shit. Sturgeon's law applies again. But I keep on forgetting that.

Why do you think it was ludicurous? Admittedly I don't remember any detailed account of these events - but as I understand it Wright demonstrated that he can construct a message with Satoshi private keys. Most probably he used some trick there, a rigged laptop or maybe even rigged internet connection. But it was quite reasonable proof for me - I would not expect someone to do tricks on me when he could not demonstrat…

Quote from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36202904

> But critics called Dr Wright's claim into doubt when it emerged that part of the evidence the entrepreneur presented in public could have been generated using a string of digits linked to a seven-year-old transaction made by Satoshi, accessible via a search engine.

"It was a mistake to agree to publish my post before I saw his - I assumed his post would simply be a signed message anybody could easily verify," Mr Andresen told security researcher Dan Kaminsky when he challenged the scientist over the matter.

Also

https://www.wired.com/2016/05/craig-wright-privately-proved-...

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#79

Post by emmelaich »

hatsunearu wrote: post #47
emmelaich wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're gonna have a bad time." A major wake-up call for me in the crypto currency world was Gavin Andresen's ludicrous "validation" of Colin Wright as Satoshi. When a so-called leader clearly does not even understand the basics you realise it's 98% shit. Sturgeon's law applies again. But I keep on forgetting that.

>Gavin Andresen's ludicrous "validation" of Colin Wright as Satoshi I'm out of the loop; do you have any good summaries of this incident?

See above

Re: Email exchange between MIT Media Lab and the IOTA Foundation [pdf]

#80

Post by Rebelgecko »

charleslmunger wrote: post #60
fabianhjr wrote: post #33

> I have a feeling that you refuse to accept existence of cryptographic protocols not mentioned in the textbooks read by you. That is a cringe worthy statement by someone doing a cryptographic decentralized project. The whole conversation is a trainwreck. :/

The best part is that part of their argument for why it's not a real vulnerability is that the coordinator might have rejected it - except that the coordinator is essentially a server run by them, which makes the entire "crypto" part of crypto currency totally unnecessary.

Also doesn't help when the byline on their website is "Scalable, Decentralized, Modular, No Fees". Well, maybe 2/4. Having a central coordinator sounds pretty essential to their current design
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