6 ms·

Yes, just like preventing invasion of your country would require half the military resources in the world to be devoted to your protection at all times.

by phaemon 13y ago

betterunix 13y ago
The difference being that military resources have little use outside of military operations. The resources needed to secure Bitcoin have many uses beyond Bitcoin. All that energy, all the silicon, all the computer time, etc., etc., etc. could be used more productively. You are also forgetting that the invasion of one nation is not equivalent to the invasion of all nations, but that if one attacker controls Bitcoin's block chain, the security of all Bitcoin users is compromised. Meanwhile, in the world of cryptography research, we have known how to make secure digital cash, with rigorous security definitions, without the need for such vast energy or computing resources, with support for offline transactions, etc., for decades. The only real difference is that academic systems call for an authority or group of authorities that issue the currency, though that is not as bad as it might sound if you consider the problem of actually defining security without such an authority (Bitcoin's solution, as I mentioned, is to simply not bother with such a definition). It is hard to even say that Bitcoin has no central authority at this point; the developers of popular Bitcoin software have tremendous power over Bitcoin (e.g. they can trigger block chain forks).
- jafaku 13y ago
  > The only real difference is that academic systems call for an authority or group of authorities that issue the currency. That's quite a difference, and one of the main features of Bitcoin. See the message in the genesis block. > It is hard to even say that Bitcoin has no central authority at this point; the developers of popular Bitcoin software have tremendous power over Bitcoin (e.g. they can trigger block chain forks). I agree with you on that.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    "That's quite a difference, and one of the main features of Bitcoin. See the message in the genesis block." That is a political statement not a technical statement, and this gets to the heart of the problem with Bitcoin and with its lack of a security definition. Bitcoin is popular, particularly among those who distrust the banking system, because there is no requirement for a central authority; that is certainly true but only in a pedantic sense. Without a security definition it is hard to even talk about what Bitcoin requires. What we have therefore is a situation where no amount of technical criticism can matter with Bitcoin. Polynomial time attacks are irrelevant, because there is no requirement that Bitcoin resist polynomial time attacks. There is similarly no particular scalability requirement, and so there can be no real criticism of Bitcoin's scalability. "True believers" in Bitcoin can easily shoot down criticism because critics cannot actually point to any requirement that Bitcoin fails to fulfill: there are no clear requirements to point to. To illustrate this point, consider this statement: There is a polynomial time attack on Bitcoin, and the whitepaper itself describes it. Now, is this a problem? Well, the answer I consistently get from Bitcoin devotees is no, that is not a problem because that is how Bitcoin works. With logic like that, who can argue? So while you call the lack of an authority a feature, I call it a logical gap until a rigorous security definition is presented. Otherwise you have a solution in search of a problem, coupled with a community of people who all have their own vague notions of what they want Bitcoin to do for them.
    - jafaku 13y ago
      > That is a political statement not a technical statement Just because it doesn't have the particular kind of specification that you are looking for, it doesn't mean that it's not technical. Being distributed is very much a technical feature, no matter how you look at it. I much rather have a working solution that might or might not be broken in the future (if it was too damn insecure, someone would have broken it already), than be stuck forever with the old banking system just because we don't know how to create the mathematical/cryptological model that you are used to and would grant 100% theoretical security. That would be like not building a website or shutting down a project mid development just because some component is found to be difficult to unit-test.
- ferdo 13y ago
  > the developers of popular Bitcoin software have tremendous power over Bitcoin (e.g. they can trigger block chain forks). If Bitcoin developers do something that miners don't like, they lose their base. Developers are as invested as miners are and don't want to risk a drop in the value of their bitcoins. The balance is that developers are accountable to miners and users, unlike central banks that aren't accountable to us.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    "If Bitcoin developers do something that miners don't like, they lose their base" How is that any different from what happened with Chaum's startup (digicash)? Bad management resulted in a failed business. "The balance is that developers are accountable to miners and users, unlike central banks that aren't accountable to us." Central banks are accountable to their customers insofar as the management of a currency is concerned. If a currency is poorly managed, it will fail, which leaves the bank without any authority. Sure, the bankers might remain wealthy if they happened to hold assets other than the currency -- but the same is true of Bitcoin developers, who might simply sell their BTC on some exchange and thus protect themselves from a Bitcoin failure.

Yes, just like preventing invasion of your country would require half the military resources in the world to be devoted to your protection at all times.

by phaemon 13y ago

Yes, just like preventing invasion of your country would require half the military resources in the world to be devoted to your protection at all times.

betterunix 13y ago

The difference being that military resources have little use outside of military operations. The resources needed to secure Bitcoin have many uses beyond Bitcoin. All that energy, all the silicon, all the computer time, etc., etc., etc. could be used more productively. You are also forgetting that the invasion of one nation is not equivalent to the invasion of all nations, but that if one attacker controls Bitcoin's block chain, the security of all Bitcoin users is compromised. Meanwhile, in the world of cryptography research, we have known how to make secure digital cash, with rigorous security definitions, without the need for such vast energy or computing resources, with support for offline transactions, etc., for decades. The only real difference is that academic systems call for an authority or group of authorities that issue the currency, though that is not as bad as it might sound if you consider the problem of actually defining security without such an authority (Bitcoin's solution, as I mentioned, is to simply not bother with such a definition). It is hard to even say that Bitcoin has no central authority at this point; the developers of popular Bitcoin software have tremendous power over Bitcoin (e.g. they can trigger block chain forks).

jafaku 13y ago
> The only real difference is that academic systems call for an authority or group of authorities that issue the currency. That's quite a difference, and one of the main features of Bitcoin. See the message in the genesis block. > It is hard to even say that Bitcoin has no central authority at this point; the developers of popular Bitcoin software have tremendous power over Bitcoin (e.g. they can trigger block chain forks). I agree with you on that.
- betterunix 13y ago
  "That's quite a difference, and one of the main features of Bitcoin. See the message in the genesis block." That is a political statement not a technical statement, and this gets to the heart of the problem with Bitcoin and with its lack of a security definition. Bitcoin is popular, particularly among those who distrust the banking system, because there is no requirement for a central authority; that is certainly true but only in a pedantic sense. Without a security definition it is hard to even talk about what Bitcoin requires. What we have therefore is a situation where no amount of technical criticism can matter with Bitcoin. Polynomial time attacks are irrelevant, because there is no requirement that Bitcoin resist polynomial time attacks. There is similarly no particular scalability requirement, and so there can be no real criticism of Bitcoin's scalability. "True believers" in Bitcoin can easily shoot down criticism because critics cannot actually point to any requirement that Bitcoin fails to fulfill: there are no clear requirements to point to. To illustrate this point, consider this statement: There is a polynomial time attack on Bitcoin, and the whitepaper itself describes it. Now, is this a problem? Well, the answer I consistently get from Bitcoin devotees is no, that is not a problem because that is how Bitcoin works. With logic like that, who can argue? So while you call the lack of an authority a feature, I call it a logical gap until a rigorous security definition is presented. Otherwise you have a solution in search of a problem, coupled with a community of people who all have their own vague notions of what they want Bitcoin to do for them.
  - jafaku 13y ago
    > That is a political statement not a technical statement Just because it doesn't have the particular kind of specification that you are looking for, it doesn't mean that it's not technical. Being distributed is very much a technical feature, no matter how you look at it. I much rather have a working solution that might or might not be broken in the future (if it was too damn insecure, someone would have broken it already), than be stuck forever with the old banking system just because we don't know how to create the mathematical/cryptological model that you are used to and would grant 100% theoretical security. That would be like not building a website or shutting down a project mid development just because some component is found to be difficult to unit-test.
ferdo 13y ago
> the developers of popular Bitcoin software have tremendous power over Bitcoin (e.g. they can trigger block chain forks). If Bitcoin developers do something that miners don't like, they lose their base. Developers are as invested as miners are and don't want to risk a drop in the value of their bitcoins. The balance is that developers are accountable to miners and users, unlike central banks that aren't accountable to us.
- betterunix 13y ago
  "If Bitcoin developers do something that miners don't like, they lose their base" How is that any different from what happened with Chaum's startup (digicash)? Bad management resulted in a failed business. "The balance is that developers are accountable to miners and users, unlike central banks that aren't accountable to us." Central banks are accountable to their customers insofar as the management of a currency is concerned. If a currency is poorly managed, it will fail, which leaves the bank without any authority. Sure, the bankers might remain wealthy if they happened to hold assets other than the currency -- but the same is true of Bitcoin developers, who might simply sell their BTC on some exchange and thus protect themselves from a Bitcoin failure.