Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

[psionl0]

Thank you for finally admitting that your countless posts about "uniquely difficult to change" don't prove that change is impossible.

 

[psionl0]

Before you attempt to gaslight me or call me emotional again, let's recap what this is about.

It started with you quoting from a Forbes article:

google moves up the quantum computing algorithmic break of bitcoin to 2032, aims to protect it's users by 2029

In response, jeremyp pointed out that:

it's not just crypto coins that are compromised if somebody finds a way to get a private key from a public key, virtually all current encryption techniques on the Internet will be vulnerable.

To which you responded:

i would note that crypto, and bitcoin in particular, is uniquely difficult to adapt new techniques and change the code due to it’s decentralized nature.

There are two possible inferences that can be drawn from this response:

1. It is apropos of nothing and not intended to address anything in jeremyp's post.
2. You believe that other technologies (like google) will adapt to developments in cracking the private/public key encryption but bitcoin is unlikely to because it is "uniquely difficult to change".

I assumed that it was the latter case but perhaps I was wrong?

 

[jeremyp]

Thank you for finally admitting that your countless posts about "uniquely difficult to change" don't prove that change is impossible.

That's true. So to return to an earlier topic, it is not impossible to change the software to remove the limit on the total number of Bitcoins.

 

[jeremyp]

There are two possible inferences that can be drawn from this response:

1. It is apropos of nothing and not intended to address anything in jeremyp's post.
2. You believe that other technologies (like google) will adapt to developments in cracking the private/public key encryption but bitcoin is unlikely to because it is "uniquely difficult to change".

I assumed that it was the latter case but perhaps I was wrong?

Google isn't a technology: it's an advertising company. Anyway, let's assume that what you meant was the HTTPS protocol. It's easy for any individual organisation that provides services offer HTTPS to switch encryption technologies. They just switch their servers over to use a quantum computing proof encryption method. The customers' browsers also have to be capable of using the same encryption method but that is taken care of with an update.

The unique* difficulties for the blockchain and Bitcoin include:

• mining software changes can only be made with a consensus of miners. This is historically hard to achieve but you can argue that because not doing this would destroy Bitcoin, it will get done more quickly.
• All of the existing wallets are protected by compromised technology. They need to be somehow migrated to more secure versions even though you can't trust any transactions because their keys are compromised.
• The proof of work algorithm might be vulnerable and need changing
• All transactions from the time the encryption was broken to the improved non vulnerable encryption are suspect

The above problems will all lead to loss of confidence in the security of BTC and cause the price to collapse since confidence is all that holds it up.

* actually, they are not all unique, but the perfect storm of all of them together s unique

 

[dirtywick]

some cryptos have a more centralized structure, so it doesn’t apply to all blockchain tech either. take a look at ethereum for example. this is part of what i meant when i said bitcoin is uniquely difficult among other reasons already listed.

 

[dirtywick]

Thank you for finally admitting that your countless posts about "uniquely difficult to change" don't prove that change is impossible.

i never claimed it was impossible nor tried to prove that.

 

[dirtywick]

I assumed that it was the latter case but perhaps I was wrong?

i was pointing out that bitcoin has more hurdles to jump due to its decentralized design. i wasnt making a prediction

 

[psionl0]

That's true. So to return to an earlier topic, it is not impossible to change the software to remove the limit on the total number of Bitcoins.

Any changes are theoretically possible but the less necessary the change, the less likely it is to meet the consensus of miners. You could argue that a limit change is necessary but that is unlikely to have broad consensus. It would be based on the assumption that bitcoin is primarily used as a day to day currency and we know that isn't true.

Google isn't a technology: it's an advertising company. Anyway, let's assume that what you meant was the HTTPS protocol. It's easy for any individual organisation that provides services offer HTTPS to switch encryption technologies. They just switch their servers over to use a quantum computing proof encryption method. The customers' browsers also have to be capable of using the same encryption method but that is taken care of with an update.

The unique* difficulties for the blockchain and Bitcoin include:

• mining software changes can only be made with a consensus of miners. This is historically hard to achieve but you can argue that because not doing this would destroy Bitcoin, it will get done more quickly.
• All of the existing wallets are protected by compromised technology. They need to be somehow migrated to more secure versions even though you can't trust any transactions because their keys are compromised.
• The proof of work algorithm might be vulnerable and need changing
• All transactions from the time the encryption was broken to the improved non vulnerable encryption are suspect

[hilite[The above problems will all lead to loss of confidence in the security of BTC and cause the price to collapse since confidence is all that holds it up[/hilite].

* actually, they are not all unique, but the perfect storm of all of them together s unique

Don't pin your argument on a technicality. Your post is quite good otherwise although you frame your conclusion as if it were inevitable and unavoidable.

Remember that this is based on the assumption that there is a actual threat to existing encryption methods and that a viable solution exists. If more than one viable solution exists then it is possible that we might get another hard fork. If wallet holders needed to do something to adapt to the new encryption methods then there is potential for some wallet holders to lose their crypto because of their failure to act or because of encryption scams.

Could this result in a loss of confidence in cryptos and bitcoin in particular? I don't know. We are dealing with too many ifs here.

 

[dirtywick]

https://archive.is/iRBng

nytimes claims to have figured out the identity of satoshi

 

[jeremyp]

Any changes are theoretically possible but the less necessary the change, the less likely it is to meet the consensus of miners. You could argue that a limit change is necessary but that is unlikely to have broad consensus. It would be based on the assumption that bitcoin is primarily used as a day to day currency and we know that isn't true.


Don't pin your argument on a technicality.

I'm not pinning my argument on a technicality. You were saying something about technologies but your example was not a technology. I made a guess as to what you meant so as I could explore the impact of breaking public key encryption on that technology and the users of that technology. That first sentence was my explanation of why I was talking about HTTPS even though you didn't mention it explicitly.

Your post is quite good otherwise although you frame your conclusion as if it were inevitable and unavoidable.

It may not be inevitable but there is definitely a strong case to be made that news that the technology used to stop other people from taking your Bitcoins would cause the market to collapse.

Remember that this is based on the assumption that there is a actual threat to existing encryption methods and that a viable solution exists.

Yes. That is true. This whole discussion is based on a hypothetical about which I am sceptical. But we can have discussions based on hypotheticals.

If more than one viable solution exists then it is possible that we might get another hard fork. If wallet holders needed to do something to adapt to the new encryption methods then there is potential for some wallet holders to lose their crypto because of their failure to act or because of encryption scams.

Could this result in a loss of confidence in cryptos and bitcoin in particular? I don't know. We are dealing with too many ifs here.

The compromise of public key encryption will have negative effects on the whole banking industry but I think there is a good case that it will be much worse for Bitcoin than other sectors (see points made in my previous post as to why) .

 

[jeremyp]

https://archive.is/iRBng

nytimes claims to have figured out the identity of satoshi

Denied by Adam Black

Adam Back says he is not Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto

The British computer scientist and entrepreneur has denied being the man who the New York Times identified at Satoshi Nakamoto.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[dirtywick]

yeah the nytimes article noted he denied it during their interviews, the article is essentially the case why they don’t believe him

 

[ponderingturtle]

We finally have a legitimate use for bitcoin, it only took what 15 years but we finally found one!

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5821752-iran-ship-toll-cryptocurrency-strait-hormuz/

 

[novaphile]

The concern is that bitcoin uses public key/private key based elliptical encryption.

Quantum computing may allow private keys to be derived from the published, hashed, public keys.

Once the private key is derived, an attacker can masquerade as your wallet, and transfer all your bitcoin away from you.

Note that this method could be used to mop up all the currently 'lost' bitcoin.

That alone would be a very significant shock to the whole system.

(If all the lost coins are recovered and transferred out.)

 

[psionl0]

The compromise of public key encryption will have negative effects on the whole banking industry but I think there is a good case that it will be much worse for Bitcoin than other sectors (see points made in my previous post as to why) .

I suspect that "negative effects" is a gross understatement. It would be more like a total collapse of the entire financial system. Once customers realize that their savings were being stolen, it would likely cause bank runs on a scale never seen before.

 

[jeremyp]

I suspect that "negative effects" is a gross understatement. It would be more like a total collapse of the entire financial system. Once customers realize that their savings were being stolen, it would likely cause bank runs on a scale never seen before.

I think it would be a severe shock but not terminal. If a bank finds its electronic systems compromised, it can can pull the plug on its publicly facing servers and unwind the bad transactions by hand. That would be really hard to do with BTC because you have to get a consensus of all of the miners to agree to the transaction unwinding. Furthermore, it s possible that the proof of work algorithm would be compromised. If that's the case then BTC is dead.

I don't mean to say that the traditional financial industry will be fine, it won't. I personally truly hope that quantum computing is a boondoggle because the effects will be immense if public key cryptography is broken.

 

[jeremyp]

The concern is that bitcoin uses public key/private key based elliptical encryption.

Quantum computing may allow private keys to be derived from the published, hashed, public keys.

Just one pedantic note. It is already possible to derive the private key of a public/private key pair from its public key. For most algorithms, all you need to do is factorise the public key. The security comes from the fact that it takes a very long time to factorise a large number.

 

[dirtywick]

I think it would be a severe shock but not terminal. If a bank finds its electronic systems compromised, it can can pull the plug on its publicly facing servers and unwind the bad transactions by hand. That would be really hard to do with BTC because you have to get a consensus of all of the miners to agree to the transaction unwinding. Furthermore, it s possible that the proof of work algorithm would be compromised. If that's the case then BTC is dead.

I don't mean to say that the traditional financial industry will be fine, it won't. I personally truly hope that quantum computing is a boondoggle because the effects will be immense if public key cryptography is broken.

i think it’s particularly problematic for bitcoin because, as psion noted earlier and i agree, unlike banking it’s not used as currency or other economic activity. it’s people gambling on charts and hoping to get rich quick. if your money isn’t safe and want your gambling fix there’s likely to be many alternatives available to you.

 

[psionl0]

I think it would be a severe shock but not terminal. If a bank finds its electronic systems compromised, it can can pull the plug on its publicly facing servers and unwind the bad transactions by hand.

Like I said, "too many ifs". If the encryption security was compromised and no fix was available then the entire banking sector would be paralysed since bank records are almost entirely digital. Sure, this would kill all cryptos but that is small bikkies in the grand scheme of things.

Even if banks found a fix, the damage would still be done. It would take years to unwind all the bogus transactions. There would be more than a few customers who claimed that genuine transactions were bogus and banks are not equipped to do transaction audits on such a massive scale. At least with cryptos like bitcoin,you xould wind back to the last known "good" block once a fix was found (though consensus on which block that was may be problematic and it may not be enough to restore confidence in bitcoin).

If a fix became available before the public/private encryption was broken then there is no reason to presume that it wouldn't be applied to cryptos as well ("uniquely difficult to change" not withstanding).

 

[Roger Ramjets]

https://archive.is/iRBng

nytimes claims to have figured out the identity of satoshi

Mr. Back was flanked by two executives from a new Bitcoin treasury company he had co-founded. He explained that the company was in the process of going public, forcing him to be more careful about how he interacted with the press.

'Satoshi Nakamoto' is estimated to have between 750,000 and 1,100,000 bitcoins, which would make him worth at least $93 billion - so why is he messing around creating a new company? Without this, some estimates put Adam Back’s net worth at between $100 million and $150 million, which is still insanely rich for someone who isn't doing anything of note. His company Blockstream says its mission is to "create the financial infrastructure of the future... to change the world for the benefit of all.". This is the kind of evangelism you would expect from the founder of Bitcoin.

Whether Adam Back is 'Satoshi Nakamoto' or not his attitude is the same, so he might as well be. He has far more money than he needs and is promoting Bitcoin for 'love'. His company says it is building software that 'accelerates the adoption of Bitcoin and peer-to-peer finance for a fairer financial system that benefits everyone, not just a privileged few'. Yet Bitcoin has not come close to achieving that goal. Adam Back is using his privileged position in an attempt to force onto the world a financial system that many of us don't want.