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I thought this was going to be a cryptography article. I believe the concern has been raised before and goes something like this: 1. The Bitcoin cryptosystem i
by ColinDabritz 14y ago
I thought this was going to be a cryptography article. I believe the concern has been raised before and goes something like this:
1. The Bitcoin cryptosystem is shown to be weak in some way, and might be breakable. There is no migration strategy to a new, stronger system, so people are stuck using it.
2. The weakness turns into a full exploit, and anyone with a desktop computer can forge Bitcoin transactions all they like. Bitcoins lose their trust and no one will exchange them for other currencies, goods, or services.
Has any progress been made on this issue?
- kbaker 14y agoWhat issue? Please cite your sources... The best part of Bitcoin is that when a problem is found, people can upgrade the software and move past it. Even if there was a weakness in certain cipher, the way Bitcoin is constructed it would take multiple serious vulnerabilities in ECDSA, RIPEMD160 and SHA256 _at the same time_ to have any effect on the security for the end user. Bitcoin itself has been around for 4 years with some serious attackers already on the core protocol, and it is still pretty much unchanged. It is unfortunately much more rewarding and much easier (sadly, but that is improving) attacking services that use Bitcoin.
- ColinDabritz 14y agohttp://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/88/is-bitcoin-future-proof http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/88/is-bitcoin-fut... I saw the questions raised on discussion threads so I can't recall the original context. The triple protocol I wasn't aware of, and is what provides the transition buffer if one of the protocols is broken. Neat.