No, he is still wrong on this point as well because he started by misrepresenting the argument altogether. He simply burned a strawman. Online banking regularly uses 128 bit SSL session encryption,(between the customer and the bank, not between each other) which is different enough from the way Bitcoin works to be apples to ornages, but the argument is usually, "Won't Bitcoin be broken by faster/quantum computers?" "No, because if that were to ever become a problem for bitcoin, encryption for the finance industry would also be under threat long before Bitcoin was, and new algoritims would be found that Bitcoin could use." [/quote] Well he writes: Some people argue that it's "as strong as SHA256" and that "if someone could break SHA256, then banks would be in trouble as it is."
I don't know - maybe he read it somewhere. Or maybe he misinterpreted what he read. Personally I would not assume that he built a straw man purposefully, and I would not try to ridicule him by bolding his seemingly paradoxical statement - it looks like a quick win, but it backfires if found out.
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Hehe, this author actually got me to stop reading by saying the following: If you honestly believe that abandoning the gold standard was a bad idea - and there are indeed people who believe this - then you might as well stop reading now. Wiser men than I have explained in excruciating detail why you're an idiot. This article will not convince you, it will just make you angry.
Unbelievable, usually an author saying "stop here if xzy" just keeps me going. Did anyone read it to the end. Does it continue like it started off? I kept reading. You've really got to read this part, it's awesome: FAIL #3: The whole technological basis is flawed.
Bitcoin is, fundamentally, a cryptosystem. Some people argue that it's "as strong as SHA256" and that "if someone could break SHA256, then banks would be in trouble as it is."
Wrong on both counts.
First of all, I admit, I don't totally understand the bitcoin algorithms and systems. I don't really need to. I understand only this: the road to crypto hell is paved with the bones of people who thought that a good cryptosystem can be designed by combining proven algorithms in unproven ways. SHA256 may be the strongest part of bitcoin, but a cryptosystem is only as strong as its weakest link.
You want to replace the world economy with a hard-to-guess math formula? Where's your peer review? Where are the hordes of cryptographers who have spent 30+ years trying to break your algorithm and failed? Come talk to me in 30 years. Meanwhile, it's safe to assume that bitcoin has serious flaws that will allow people to manufacture money, duplicate coins, or otherwise make fake transactions. In that way, it's just like real dollars.
But what's *not* like real dollars is the cost of failure. With real dollars, when people figure out how to make counterfeit bills, we find those people and throw them in jail, and eventually we replace our bills with newer-style ones that are more resistant to failure. And the counterfeiters are limited by how many fake bills their printing press can produce.
With bitcoin, a single failure of the cryptosystem could result in an utter collapse of the entire financial network. Unlimited inflation. Fake transactions. People not getting paid when they thought they were getting paid. And the perpetrators of the attack would make so much money, so fast, that they could apply their fraud at Internet Scale on Internet Time.
(Ha, and don't even talk to me about how your world-changing financial system would of course also be protected by anti-fraud laws so we could still punish people for faking it. If we still need the government, what is the point of your currency again?)
The current financial system is slow, and tedious, and old, and in many ways actually broken or flawed. But one thing we know is that it's *resilient*. One single mathematical error will not send the whole thing into a tailspin. With bitcoin, it will.
And no, a break in SHA256 would not break the current financial system or ruin any banks. How could it? What would even be the mechanism for such an attack? How would it make the paper bills in my pocket stop working for buying hot dogs? Can't we just hunt down and arrest the people who forged the fake transactions?
While I don't fully agree with all of his points - he is right in the parts that you bolded. By proving that one part of the Bitcoin protocol is strong you don't prove that it is strong as a whole. And he does not need to know the protocol to find a logical mistake in the reasoning trying to establish that Bitdoin is as strong as SHA256 (if it is not identical to SHA256). "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link" - this is spot on.
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Maybe this cannot be answered honestly - but was there any hint about what was the motivation of the attackers? Did you receive 'protection' offers or something?
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As a temporary measure you could also try whitelisting all IPs used by users that logged in once - this would at least make people feel more safe about accessing their money.
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With coinpal being shut down has anyone noticed an increase in account suspensions of people who bought or sold bitcoins using the service ?
Would it not be easy for paypal to know who the customers are and then mass ban anyone who traded for bitcoins?
They cannot do anything too obvious - if the story breaks that they are afraid of bitcoin this would validate our currency immensely.
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Just a crazy thought: Ebay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion - if we make bitcoin a kind of alternative to PayPal it should not be worth less than that. For 6 millions BTC - this would mean about $200 per BTC. The problem is that there is really long way to make bitcoin usable for the average Internet user and I don't even know if that is feasible at all. On the other hand the PayPal valuation did not include the money stored in PayPal.
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Is there something that could be the basis for bitcoin numizmatics? Maybe some palindrome hash or something?
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Hey - I counted on at least some answers about buying bitcoins when the price is back to x after the crash.
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Come'on - survive was not used literally there.
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We need to distribute bitcoin knowledge to the wider public and I am willing to pay for such articles. Are you serious with that offer?
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I've written a primitive trading bot for MtGox. It can earn money in some circumstances - but in general it fails probably because of the competition of other bots. I understand that knowledge in this field is mostly kept secret - but some of it must be public. Any links? I am also open for cooperation.
By the way, it is fscking addictive. Maybe I should open source it? I have the feeling that playing this game can be like FarmVille for geeks and can generate tons of publicity for bitcoin.
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