[Cryptography] On Security Architecture, The Panopticon, And "The Law"

Natanael natanael.l at gmail.com
Fri Dec 27 14:42:29 EST 2013


Some more off topic about Bitcoin, jump below to the line to see the
security related stuff.

@IanG: Everybody is expecting Bitcoin to stop *somewhere*. It's obvious it
can't rise forever. But where it will stop is not something anybody can say
with certainty. But I can say this: I personally believe (I'm aware I might
have judged it wrong, but I feel fairly certain, feel free to argue against
me if you believe you've found an error) has better economical properties
than gold (primarily that this has provable scarcity, is easier to move and
verify, and even is programmable money). For the entire pool of bitcoins to
reach just 1/10 of the value of the entire pool of gold, it still has a
long way to go. But I don't know with certainty if it ever will, and
neither does anybody else, but I personally think it will.

Of course it looks strange and seems like a scam when it rises so fast and
there's people who pushes for it so strongly to practically everybody on
the outside, it would look like a pump and dump to most people, and lots of
the strong believers are also a bit wary (looking at the charts can often
make me feel uncomfortable), but *Bitcoin the protocol* as such essentially
behaves like digital gold and is as such not a scam. If you think most of
the price is driven by pump-and-dumpers, then it's only reasonable to stay
away (just like how any small stock could be manipulated by somebody other
than the company it represents ownership shares for, where the stock isn't
a scam but somebody is using it as a tool for scamming others). I don't
believe it's being controlled by scammers (I can not prove it though), and
I have no idea if it's rising faster than sustainable or not.

----------------------

@Jerry: Why not just use timing alone? If you make the device add "random"
delays that look natural on the network, then you could encode data in the
timing differences. The data would be hidden in the timing noise and could
even require a key to decode so that even somebody who knows of the timing
encoding scheme can't decode it without the key.

- Sent from my phone
Den 27 dec 2013 17:57 skrev "ianG" <iang at iang.org>:

> On 27/12/13 00:11 AM, Natanael wrote:
>
>> Why do you think Bitcoin is a ponzi? It rather mimics the mining process
>> of precious metals in digital form. (There is also no need for it to go
>> up and up forever. And I'd like to note that I actually have bought
>> things with them.)
>>
>
>
> Getting somewhat off-scope here, but Bitcoin is now the bleeding edge of
> cryptography, so important to understand *the business model* as well as
> the technical stuff.  You can't do technical security without a business
> model.
>
>
>
> Ponzis, pyramids and bubbles generally offer a better rate of return than
> is natural.  They feed on this 'great rate of return' by using their
> customers to bring in more customers, which in the long run creates the
> great rate of return.
>
> They cannot go for ever up or even continue in operations.  The limit is
> how many new customers can come in to pump up the value of the insiders,
> which is something that can be estimated.
>
> Bitcoin matches all these core requirements.  As a symptom, also, there is
> often unrealistic hype surrounding these things.
>
>
>
> Where ponzis / pyramids differ from bubbles is that the former two have a
> person or few people behind them, early winners, whereas the bubbles tend
> to have more of a real underlying asset (real estate or stock market).
>
> This also matches bitcoin:  the early miners are stockpiling their early
> buckets, and they are worth a fortune at today's price.  Perhaps we don't
> know who they are;  but they exist, and the blockchain tells us how much
> the early insiders have.
>
> When the price crashes, people are not left with any asset at all. Whereas
> with a real estate bubble, people are left with the land, regardless of the
> price (leaving aside mortgage issues...).
>
>
>
> So, if you want to model Bitcoin as a pyramid or a ponzi, it's possible.
>  To a great extent the differences are just semantic arguments or legal bla
> bla.
>
> Whether this makes you upset is really your own emotional issues.  It is
> to be noted (and frequently noted by Bitcoin enthusiasts) that the
> governments run their own pyramid schemes called pension schemes, and also
> the recent wall street bubbles have insiders as well:  wall street itself.
>  And the USG runs a system called the USD which has been artificially
> pumped up by its use as the world trade currency;  a game that stopped in
> or around 2000, and has been lsoing a percent or so of dominance every year
> since then.
>
> And and and...  Be careful to separate economics from excuses & emotions :)
>
>
>  And regarding Ripple,  that system relies entirely on mutual trust in
>> between a set of servers. It can not scale and at the same time ensure a
>> high level of (well founded) trust. It's a weird form of web of trust,
>> where the users have very little say in the process.
>>
>
>
> Yes, I agree.  Such systems have a sustainability problem.  The trust
> model is very important for long term sustainability.  Unfortunately, trust
> models are often too complex to understand easily or too simplistic to
> work, a good trust model is hard work.  Examples of both available on
> request, but I need you to trust me with some hard currency first...
>
>
>
> As to the rest of the combined posters' comments -- as the business model
> that you are trying to solve is unclear, it is difficult to ground a
> solution...
>
>
>
> iang
>
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