dumpfromOLDMoMilkshake
Created Tuesday 07 March 2023
RANDOMNESS
Pseudo-randomness is easy:
"Multiply big'ol numbers a bunch and chop off the beginning of them"
TRUE Randomness is surprisingly hard
RANDOMNESS
In a sense, you can't do it "inside" the computer.
Cloudflare
Backdoors
Yep, they're going to KEEP TRYING THIS MESS.
PRACTICAL MATTERS
DON'T ROLL YOUR OWN...better yet
PRACTICAL MATTERS
DEMAND only free and open source here, confirmed by e.g. NIST
Anything else is almost CERTAINLY compromised in real life.
PRACTICAL MATTERS
All software is imperfect and may have bugs;
..watch out as they may try to use this against you.
PRACTICAL MATTERS
Don't fall for the "Security through Obscurity" trap
(as in, actually reinforce, don't just hide)
PRACTICAL MATTERS
- OR for the "Security through Obscurity trap" trap
(additional hiding to reinforcement isn't bad, aka someone might seriously say, DONT PAINT THIS CAMO.)
Rubber Hose Decryption
Watch the endpoints, this is where the vulnerabilities are
Finally - encrypted AGAINST WHOM?
You'll have to do a fair bit of "game theoretical" thinking here,
when you're dealing with "black-box" encryption.
E.g. Whatsapp claims to be end-to-end encrypted?
I legit don't know.
Other ideas, again:
(prof's opinion)
Biometrics are stupid*
Other ideas, again:
Biometrics are as stupid as Social security numbers
(i.e. decent USERNAMES or slight SECURITY THROUGH OBSCURITY)
I don't use 'em.
What else
Hey, so these hashes
They look like--
02f39aae85ad73e162b446e9
What are the odds that it would look like, say..
00000ae85ad73e162b446e9
Not IMPOSSIBLE, just VERY UNLIKELY.
Political Science and Economics tend to suck, esp when
they ignore each other.
Politics people ignore "It's the economy stupid."
Economists ignore 'Power'
Economists ignore power:
Aka, if the other guy has a sharp stick or a big gun,
the terms of the negotations change a lot.
A bit on banks and money
What is most money "made of?" How is it stored? Coins and little green pieces of paper?
A bit on banks and money
What is most money "made of?" How is it stored? Coins and little green pieces of paper?
NOPE.
Just (trusted) lists. Ledgers in banks and such.
A reasonable, but incorrect, idea
The cavemen had trouble 'trading' stuff, so they started using shiny rocks.
Nope. Remember, IT and Power are about writing things down.
Power, rules, and lists and IOUS came before "money"
In fact, lists are older than "money" itself.
Not dollars, but a list somewhere that says
"Ug owes Oof two cows"
"Oof owes Grok a stick"
or more accurately
"everybody owes the king taxes"
theorem: any system that involves writing down "ownership" and "what you've paid" for is (possibly) a bank = (gamestop, even)
wat
forgive the language
But, you also might want "pieces/tokens"
GOLD AND DIAMONDS HA HA HA
(wait, seriously. Why are diamonds more expensive than water?)
Bitcoin and most other "Cryptocurrencies"
(note, some others don't work exactly this way)
A huge encoded/distributed online ledger/list, also called a "blockchain"
Powered/driven by "mining" (which is more like a slot machine, pull the lever, power the thing, and see if you "win")
Mining Bitcoin?
Randomly trying to find "nice looking" hashes.
......4E9BB99 nope.
.......000000 yep! $$$$
Mining
When you download a bitcoin (full node) wallet program, you literally have to get a copy of every single transaction ever.
Transactions are computationally expensive.
The "Mining" also powers the "hashed transactions..eg."
02b23 gave bf239 .005 bitcoins. I can prove it because the hash of this transaction is =>
081ee23
Add this to the chain and spread it around.
Bitcoin transaction.
You "add your new or old hash movement" to the ledger. By making another special hash. Which is "expensive."
This work powers the blockchain and "proves" that you've put in work. By design, the system "rewards" you for it.
Bitcoin transaction.
Now, why is it valuable?
Because people believe it is.
See also: gold, beanie babies, crappy companies, virtual swords, pokemon cards, sneakers, whatevs.
Now, why is it valuable?
Specifically, because you can get people to trade you something for it.
Lets mess up your head more.
How do real banks work?
ANOTHER reasonable, but incorrect idea
"Fractional Reserve Banking."
You give your money to the bank to hold on to, and then they lend some of it out.
The amount of your money they lend out is the interest rate.
Not quite. FIAT Money.
You invest your money in the bank system, in the reasonable hope, backed by law and guns,
that you can have it back when you ask for it.
Not quite. FIAT Money.
The Federal Reserve, based on looking at stuff (including but not limited to this),
using your money as part of the leverage, DECLARES an interest rate
(i.e. decides how much money to make out of thin air)
Not quite. FIAT Money.
Different from the first thing because it's not limited to the money you all put in.
I.e. it's not "Scrooge McDuck gold in a vault"
it's "America has guns and we SAY so"
Don't know about y'all
But this kind of made crypto EASIER to understand,
because crypto (and all money type things)
does the same thing.
You can issue all the coins you want,
but they're only worth what other people will trade for them.
HALLOWEEN CANDY
and tunafish sandwiches
and books.
Bitcoin transaction.
PS: Crypto addresses? Just numbers in different bases (sometimes with a prefix):
Functionally similar to public keys
BTC: 18L1qxHaN1i8ihrLMX8sxrQLmfoaTWud9R
ETH: 0xD54b6C55A8aEc0bec04Cb6b3eB6F84F6BcF03619
(these are 100% real, please feel free to send me money :) )
"Blockchain"
It's a large public database, in which everyone can see every transaction. That's all.
Now give me a bunch of money because I just said "blockchain" :)
NFTs
"Non Fungible Tokens"
Okay, FUNGIBLE means, they're all equal, like the dollars in your wallet. None is different from the other
NFTs
Basically — a serial number or a url
That is movable, that THEORETICALLY SAYS
"You own this thing."
They seem very silly now
But perhaps they might be useful for anything that could use:
"A public record of ownership,"
Like House deeds, etc.
Backlinks: FSU Courses:LIS3353:Raw LIS3353 Slides