5 ms·

Bitcoin doesn't involve any encryption.

• toomuchtodo 7y ago
  As long as the FCC interprets statute to not consider signed transactions as encryption (which is a possible outcome).
  • firethief 7y ago
    The ban is not on encryption per se (which, as you point out, could be confused with cryptography in general), but on attempting to obscure the content of messages. Obscuring message content is by no means a function of digital signatures.
    • RL_Quine 7y ago
      For ECDSA you can’t provide a signature isn’t arbitrary data. The nonce is by definition not known, so it contains enciphered information.
      • Dylan16807 7y ago
        I think you mean it can't be proven not to have 8 bytes of enciphered information. But anyway, you can use a hash function to generate the 8 bytes of nonce.
        • RL_Quine 7y ago
          You can’t prove you did without revealing the nonce, and therefor the private key.
          • Dylan16807 7y ago
            You could reveal it once the transaction is used. If anyone really doubts your 8 bytes.
      • firethief 7y ago
        That's true but not relevant here because the intent of the signatures is not to conceal the nonces.
• wglb 7y ago
  Ok, so why do they call it crypto?
  • firethief 7y ago
    It's shortened from "cryptocurrency", which derives from "cryptography". Bitcoin does use cryptography, including cryptographic hash functions (for summarizing data in a tamper-resistant way) and signatures (for attesting to authorship), but it doesn't make use of encryption, as the technology doesn't require concealing the content of any communication.
  • parliament32 7y ago
    Encryption and cryptography are different things. Encryption is a type of cryptography, but not all cryptography is encryption.
• A2017U1 7y ago
  Correct, it involves a variety of cryptographic systems.