and Expensive Monkey JPEGS
Created Tuesday 22 February 2022
Pseudo-randomness is easy:
"Multiply big'ol numbers a bunch and chop off the beginning of them"
TRUE Randomness is surprisingly hard
In a sense, you can't do it "inside" the computer.
Yep, they're going to KEEP TRYING THIS MESS.
DON'T ROLL YOUR OWN...better yet
DEMAND only free and open source here, confirmed by e.g. NIST
Anything else is almost CERTAINLY compromised in real life.
All software is imperfect and may have bugs;
..watch out as they may try to use this against you.
Don't fall for the "Security through Obscurity" trap
(as in, actually reinforce, don't just hide)
- OR for the "Security through Obscurity trap" trap
(additional hiding to reinforcement isn't bad, aka someone might seriously say, DONT PAINT THIS CAMO.)
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.
Hey, so these hashes
They look like--
02f39aae85ad73e162b446e9
What are the odds that it would look like, say..
00000ae85ad73e162b446e9
Not IMPOSSIBLE, just VERY UNLIKELY.
You could get your computer to guess them.
they ignore each other.
Politics people ignore "It's the economy stupid."
Economists ignore 'Power'
Aka, if the other guy has a sharp stick or a big gun,
the terms of the negotations change a lot.
The cavemen had trouble 'trading' stuff, so they started using shiny rocks.
that's mostly wrong.
The cavemen had trouble 'trading' stuff, so they started using shiny rocks.
What is most money "made of?" How is it stored? Coins and little green pieces of paper?
What is most money "made of?" How is it stored? Coins and little green pieces of paper?
NOPE.
What matters is what's written down.
Power, rules, and lists and IOUS came before "money"
Money comes later.
BECAUSE THEY OFTEN they ignore each other.
Politics people ignore "It's the economy, stupid."
(IMHO, this is pretty much most times when
everyone's analysis is off)
Economists ignore 'Power'
None of your nerd models mean anything when
the power structure is off
Aka, if the other guy has a sharp stick or a big gun,
the terms of the negotations change a lot.
- Why did Jesus flip the tables?
Not dollars, but a list somewhere that says
"Ug owes Oof two cows"
"Oof owes Grok a stick"
or more accurately..
"Give the King all the Taxes because he's basically a god"
A quick illustration:
Imagine the "coffee jar" at work that everyone puts into..
..along with a board on the side
(SHARPIE, not DRY ERASE)
Eventually, the board can do "all the work"
A big immutable list of transactions
They count internal transactions and trade information, even to each otther
They're really not trying to do this all day
(that is AWFUL trigger discipline, btw)
forgive the language
GOLD AND DIAMONDS HA HA HA
(wait, seriously. Why are diamonds more expensive than water?)
Right now, there's always "middlemen"
But with dirty green pieces of paper, there isnt.
Can we do that over the internet?
?
Aha: Give people gold to keep it running.
(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")
Randomly trying to find "nice looking" hashes.
......4E9BB99 nope.
.......000000 yep! $$$$
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.
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.
Because people believe it is.
See also: gold, beanie babies, crappy companies, virtual swords, pokemon cards, sneakers, whatevs.
Specifically, because you can get people to trade you something for it.
How do real banks work?
"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.
More like
"Fictional Reserve Banking."
amirite lol
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.
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)
It does use "how much money did we all put in the bank"
as PART of the calculation...but
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"
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.
and tunafish sandwiches
and books.
(honestly, Video Games made this click for me)
PS: Crypto addresses? Just numbers in different bases (sometimes with a prefix):
ETH: 0x19C653CB3D30EeEe2F99f9f4B987E3b22880FFCF
(100% real, please feel free to send me money :)
YUP
No one much cared about
"Put up your public key
and I can send you an encrypted message
that only you can see."
But turns out we care a lot about:
"Put up your public cryptocurrency address
and I can send you money
that only you can use."
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" :)
"Non Fungible Tokens"
Okay, FUNGIBLE means, they're all equal, like the dollars in your wallet. None is different from the other
Basically — a serial number or a url
That is movable, that THEORETICALLY SAYS
"You own this thing."
But perhaps they might be useful for anything that could use:
"A public record of ownership,"
Like House deeds, etc.