Time Travel Simulation Resolves “Grandfather Paradox” What would happen to you if you went back in time and killed your grandfather? A model using photons reveals that quantum mechanics can solve the quandary—and even foil quantum cryptography http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-travel-simulation-resolves-grandfather-paradox/Deutsch's quantum solution to the grandfather paradox works something like this: Instead of a human being traversing a CTC to kill her ancestor, imagine that a fundamental particle goes back in time to flip a switch on the particle-generating machine that created it. If the particle flips the switch, the machine emits a particle—the particle—back into the CTC; if the switch isn't flipped, the machine emits nothing. In this scenario there is no a priori deterministic certainty to the particle's emission, only a distribution of probabilities. Deutsch's insight was to postulate self-consistency in the quantum realm, to insist that any particle entering one end of a CTC must emerge at the other end with identical properties. Therefore, a particle emitted by the machine with a probability of one half would enter the CTC and come out the other end to flip the switch with a probability of one half, imbuing itself at birth with a probability of one half of going back to flip the switch. If the particle were a person, she would be born with a one-half probability of killing her grandfather, giving her grandfather a one-half probability of escaping death at her hands—good enough in probabilistic terms to close the causative loop and escape the paradox. Strange though it may be, this solution is in keeping with the known laws of quantum mechanics.
|
|
|
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/former_nsa_dire.htmlFormer NSA Director Patenting Computer Security Techniques
Former NSA Director Keith Alexander is patenting a variety of techniques to protect computer networks. We're supposed to believe that he developed these on his own time and they have nothing to do with the work he did at the NSA, except for the parts where they obviously did and therefore are worth $1 million per month for companies to license.
No, nothing fishy here.
|
|
|
https://www.stellar.org/Introducing Stellar
Stellar is a decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money in any pair of currencies. This means users can, for example, send a transaction from their Yen balance and have it arrive in Euros, Yen, or even bitcoin. We’re expecting to support the usual categories of transactions: payments to a merchant, remittances back home, or rent splits with a roommate.
You can hold a balance with a gateway, which is any network participant you trust to accept a deposit in exchange for credit on the network. Stellar also comes with a built-in digital currency, referred to as the stellar, which we’re giving away for free. The currency will have value (as determined by the market); however, its primary function is providing a conversion path between other currencies.
We hope that people will build applications on top of Stellar to help bridge the gap between digital and traditional currencies.
[...] //edit by mole0815: Titel angepasst.
|
|
|
Hacking protonmail - with a browser http://vimeo.com/99599725/cc all those fancy HTML5-Javascript-wallets out there (blockchain.info, Ripple, etc)
|
|
|
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg Joins Ripple Labs Advisory Board Ripple Labs is thrilled to announce that Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is joining the advisory board. Mr. zu Guttenberg is the Chairman and a Founder of Spitzberg Partners LLC, a New York-based boutique corporate advisory and investment firm that provides strategic counsel and investment insights on European and international political, economic, diplomatic, technology, and security issues. He served as Minister of Economics and Technology and then as Minister of Defense in the cabinet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As the youngest Defense Minister in German history, he led the most significant structural reform of the German armed forces since the Bundeswehr’s founding. During his time in office, Minister zu Guttenberg was Germany’s most popular politician. [...] One set of challenges that I am primarily interested in relates to political and regulatory affairs. While Bitcoin gained its initial popularity as a pet-project for anarchists, it is my belief that we have moved beyond cryptocurrencies being used as a way to withdrawal from the global financial system. Therefore, it will be regulated in some form. We see already the first, uncoordinated steps, specifically in Europe. [...] https://ripple.com/blog/karl-theodor-zu-guttenberg-joins-ripple-labs-advisory-board/
omg, what the hell... ob die wissen, auf wen die sich da einlassen... 
|
|
|
http://io9.com/12-futuristic-forms-of-government-that-could-one-day-ru-158983304612 Futuristic Forms of Government That Could One Day Rule the World As history has repeatedly shown, political systems come and go. Given our rapid technological and social advances, it's a trend we can expect to continue. Here are 12 extraordinary — and even frightening — ways our governments could be run in the future. 1. NoocracySimilar to Plato's "government of the wise," a noocracy would be, in the words of "biosphere" popularizer Vladimir Vernadsky, "a social and political system based on the priority of the human mind." [...] 2. CyberocracyIn a cyberocracy, governments, or governmental institutions, would rule by the effective use of information. [...] 3. An AI SingletonBut once an artificial intelligence becomes sophisticated and powerful enough, it could set itself up as a Singleton — a hypothetical world order in which there is a single decision-making agency (or entity) at the highest level of control. [...] 4. Democratic World GovernmentWe may very well be on our way to achieving the Star Trek-like vision of a global-scale liberal democracy — one capable of ending nuclear proliferation, ensuring global security, intervening to end genocide, defending human rights, and putting a stop to human-caused climate change. [...] 5. The PolystateBut if one overarching global system is not to your liking, you can always go non-local. [...] 6. Futarchy[...] "Market speculators would set prices that estimate national welfare conditional on adopting proposed policies. When the market estimate of welfare conditional on adopting a policy is higher than the estimate conditional on non-adoption, that proposal becomes law." 7. Delegative DemocracyAlso known as liquid democracy, it's described by Bryan Ford as a new paradigm for democratic organization where individual vote transfers, or delegation, is emphasized over mass election. In such a system, voting power is vested in delegates rather than representatives. [...] 8. SeasteadingFor those of you looking to escape into international waters, there's always seasteading to consider — modular, autonomous, voluntary city-states. They could take on the form of abandoned ocean liners or anything else that floats. [...] 9. GerontocracyAs people live increasingly longer, and as we gradually phase into the era of radical life extension, there's the distinct possibility that the aged will hold on to their wealth and power. [...] 10. DemarchyCoined by Australian philosopher John Burnheim, a demarchy, or lottocracy, is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected from a pool of eligible citizens. [...] 11. A Dark EnlightenmentIf a band of wingnut anarcho-capitalists get their way, we'll take one step forward by overthrowing liberal democracy — and then take two steps back by re-instating a monarchist or authoritarian system. The ringleader of this neoreactionary movement, or dark enlightenment as its called, is Mencius Moldbug. [...] 12. Post-Apocalyptic Hunter-GatherersSpeaking of regression, there's also the possibility that some kind of catastrophic event will force us to revert to paleolithic politics. [...] Which one would you prefer though? 
|
|
|
http://www.cnet.com/news/fbi-we-need-wiretap-ready-web-sites-now/FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites - nowCNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory. The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance . In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned. The FBI general counsel's office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly. [...] Will go for bitcointalk too of course. 
|
|
|
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDOwrM1qOJgToday Thomas Hunt joins the Gnostic Media podcast to discuss "Mad Bitcoins". This episode is being released on Thursday, March 06, 2014, and was recorded yesterday.
What's with all the mainstream media hype lately over Bitcoin? What is Bitcoin? What is Mt. Gox? Is Mt. Gox the same as Bitcoin? Or is that equivalent to saying Enron, or Bernie Madoff, or Al Capone, is the dollar? Is Bitcoin really only used by drug smugglers and pornographers? Is it really a government conspiracy for a global digital currency? A Ponzi scheme? Is it really unbacked by anything? Is it something we should fear because it's not supported by the Government, which brought us the dollar that's lost most of its value through usury and inflation? (Note: This is the same government that bailed out the banks in 2008 - the failed banks. The same government that prints the money and then takes 1/3rd of it back each year.)
You've probably heard most, if not all, of these exaggerations.
What if, instead of believing and spreading propaganda and fear, we got informed on what Bitcoin really is? I've personally done over 6 months research in preparation for doing some shows on this topic.
Today Thomas Hunt joins us from Mad Bitcoins. Mad Bitcoins is a daily YouTube news show covering the exciting world of cryptocurrency. Watch and Subscribe at YouTube. Host Thomas Hunt also moderates a more serious weekly Bitcoin panel discussion entitled "The Bitcoin Group" available at TheBitcoinGroup.com and is hard at work on the new WorldCryptoNetwork.com.
|
|
|
http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.7128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6998936 Time travel has captured the public imagination for much of the past century, but little has been done to actually search for time travelers. Here, three implementations of Internet searches for time travelers are described, all seeking a prescient mention of information not previously available. The first search covered prescient content placed on the Internet, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific terms in tweets on Twitter. The second search examined prescient inquiries submitted to a search engine, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific search terms submitted to a popular astronomy web site. The third search involved a request for a direct Internet communication, either by email or tweet, pre-dating to the time of the inquiry. Given practical verifiability concerns, only time travelers from the future were investigated. No time travelers were discovered. Although these negative results do not disprove time travel, given the great reach of the Internet, this search is perhaps the most comprehensive to date.
|
|
|
http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/bitcoin110.htmlEs gibt sie seit gerade mal fünf Jahren - doch schon jetzt gilt die Internetwährung Bitcoin manchen als ernsthafte Alternative zu Euro oder Dollar. Doch wie funktioniert das "digitale Gold" überhaupt? Und was kann der normale Verbraucher damit tun?
|
|
|
http://www.nature.com/news/simulations-back-up-theory-that-universe-is-a-hologram-1.14328Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologramA ten-dimensional theory of gravity makes the same predictions as standard quantum physics in fewer dimensions. At a black hole, Albert Einstein's theory of gravity apparently clashes with quantum physics, but that conflict could be solved if the Universe were a holographic projection.A team of physicists has provided some of the clearest evidence yet that our Universe could be just one big projection. In 1997, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena proposed that an audacious model of the Universe in which gravity arises from infinitesimally thin, vibrating strings could be reinterpreted in terms of well-established physics. The mathematically intricate world of strings, which exist in nine dimensions of space plus one of time, would be merely a hologram: the real action would play out in a simpler, flatter cosmos where there is no gravity. Maldacena's idea thrilled physicists because it offered a way to put the popular but still unproven theory of strings on solid footing — and because it solved apparent inconsistencies between quantum physics and Einstein's theory of gravity. It provided physicists with a mathematical Rosetta stone, a 'duality', that allowed them to translate back and forth between the two languages, and solve problems in one model that seemed intractable in the other and vice versa. But although the validity of Maldacena's ideas has pretty much been taken for granted ever since, a rigorous proof has been elusive. In two papers posted on the arXiv repository, Yoshifumi Hyakutake of Ibaraki University in Japan and his colleagues now provide, if not an actual proof, at least compelling evidence that Maldacena’s conjecture is true. In one paper, Hyakutake computes the internal energy of a black hole, the position of its event horizon (the boundary between the black hole and the rest of the Universe), its entropy and other properties based on the predictions of string theory as well as the effects of so-called virtual particles that continuously pop into and out of existence. In the other, he and his collaborators calculate the internal energy of the corresponding lower-dimensional cosmos with no gravity. The two computer calculations match. “It seems to be a correct computation,” says Maldacena, who is now at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and who did not contribute to the team's work. Regime changeThe findings “are an interesting way to test many ideas in quantum gravity and string theory”, Maldacena adds. The two papers, he notes, are the culmination of a series of articles contributed by the Japanese team over the past few years. “The whole sequence of papers is very nice because it tests the dual [nature of the universes] in regimes where there are no analytic tests.” “They have numerically confirmed, perhaps for the first time, something we were fairly sure had to be true, but was still a conjecture — namely that the thermodynamics of certain black holes can be reproduced from a lower-dimensional universe,” says Leonard Susskind, a theoretical physicist at Stanford University in California who was among the first theoreticians to explore the idea of holographic universes. Neither of the model universes explored by the Japanese team resembles our own, Maldacena notes. The cosmos with a black hole has ten dimensions, with eight of them forming an eight-dimensional sphere. The lower-dimensional, gravity-free one has but a single dimension, and its menagerie of quantum particles resembles a group of idealized springs, or harmonic oscillators, attached to one another. Nevertheless, says Maldacena, the numerical proof that these two seemingly disparate worlds are actually identical gives hope that the gravitational properties of our Universe can one day be explained by a simpler cosmos purely in terms of quantum theory.
|
|
|
|