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Showing 18 of 18 results by BlueSword
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Board Bitcoin Technical Support
Re: I found a collision. The hard part is proving it.
by
BlueSword
on 12/02/2018, 02:09:23 UTC
I found a collision on btckey.space, now how do I prove it?
What do you mean by this?  Do you mean that you found two 256-bit ECDSA public keys that hash to the same 160-bit address?

So please, how can I prove that I found this address randomly?
How is it relevent that the process was random?  To show a collision, it is necessary and sufficient to show two preimages that hash to the same value.
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Fungibility
by
BlueSword
on 03/12/2017, 13:21:38 UTC
In what sense do you think that Bitcoin is non-fungible?  Merriam-Webster defines "fungible" as "being something (such as money or a commodity) of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in paying a debt or settling an account".  Bitcoin seems to meet that definition; basically all entities who accept bitcoin will accept payment from any UTXO.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: How the hell is this worth more than gold and silver..
by
BlueSword
on 26/11/2017, 01:46:37 UTC
Anything humans made on this planet as far as software goes is 100% hackable..
Most software is crap and easily hacked.  But it's definitely possible to create secure software.  Some software, such as the seL4 kernel, is even formally verified.  Even simply running a mainstream static analysis tool on your code and fixing all the warnings (which of course is easier said than done) is enough to remove most opportunities for hacking.
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Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: Pegged off-chain currency
by
BlueSword
on 26/11/2017, 01:02:15 UTC
How come there is no cryptocurrency pegged to the value of Bitcoin but with superior transferability?
Because there is no way to do this trustlessly, and the counterparty risk is too much (not just in terms of trusting the counterparty to be honest, but trusting their cybersecurity as well).
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: How the hell is this worth more than gold and silver..
by
BlueSword
on 26/11/2017, 00:53:22 UTC
each btc possibly a sentient a.i in its own right
This is where I stopped reading.  (ಠ_ಠ)
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Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Maximum supply of Bitcoins : Can it be changed? If not why?
by
BlueSword
on 18/11/2017, 23:57:33 UTC
is there any chance that someone can change the software program that restricts the supply of Bitcoins to mine more coins.
Changing the block-generation reward to allow more than an asymptotic limit of 21 million coins would require a hard fork.  It would be a contentious hard fork, because many people strongly believe that the original plan should not be changed to dilute existing coins.

Lets say as some people predict on a future date a Bitcoin hits USD $1,000,000.
Then the smallest unit of bitcoin (1 satoshi) would be worth $0.01.  It is possible to hard-fork Bitcoin to allow further subdivisions; this would be far less controversial than increasing the maximum coin supply.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Running a Full Node, daemon comparison and SegWit
by
BlueSword
on 18/11/2017, 23:48:30 UTC
Bitcoin Core has supported SegWit since version 0.13.1.
Post
Topic
Board Speculation
Re: Why Bitcoin going up?
by
BlueSword
on 05/11/2017, 22:57:33 UTC
There's some speculation that people want to get bitcoin before the fork so that they get money on both the incumbent chain and the SegWit2x chain.  After the fork, it's to be expected that the price will drop.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: How does BIP39 work? Is all the information in the seed?
by
BlueSword
on 27/10/2017, 03:40:25 UTC
how can the addresses of all those currencies be determined by just 24 words?  The math escapes me.
A single word randomly chosen from a list of 2048 words provides 11 bits of entropy (2^11 = 2048), so 24 words provides 264 bits of entropy.  These 264 bits can be used as the seed for a cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator (CSPRNG).  The CSPRNG can then be used to produce an arbitrary amount of public/private key pairs.  A good CSPRNG has the property that it is computationally infeasible, given only a subset of the outputs of the CSPRNG, to determine the state of the CSPRNG or other outputs of the CSPRNG.  This is how it is possible to "stretch" the original 24 words to produce an arbitrary number of addresses.
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Topic
Board Altcoin Discussion
Re: Putin approves cryptocurrency and ICO(Officially)
by
BlueSword
on 25/10/2017, 03:31:59 UTC
Companies that are doing ICOs should register. Sounds pretty reasonable.

C'mon Trump, what you gonna do?
Most ICOs already need to be registered with the SEC under existing law, because they constitute securities under the Howey test.  The SEC has recently launched a cyber unit and has already begun enforcement actions against some of the most prosecutable targets (e.g., blatant scams with known principals).

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-176
https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-185-0
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Topic
Board Altcoin Discussion
Re: Putin approves cryptocurrency and ICO(Officially)
by
BlueSword
on 25/10/2017, 02:48:52 UTC
Hopefully small miners will be exempt from registering, though, and they just focus on mining businesses.  Registration might put a damper on things.

Google Translate for the relevant paragraph is:
"b) the establishment of requirements for the organization and implementation of production based on the principles of cryptography in the medium of distributed registries ("mining"), including the registration of economic entities carrying out such activities, and determining the procedure for its taxation;"

I'm not sure if "economic entities" ("xoзяйcтвyющиx cyбъeктoв") includes private individuals, but my wild guess would be no. 

(The original Russian text of the above-quoted paragraph is:
"б) ycтaнoвлeниe тpeбoвaний к opгaнизaции и ocyщecтвлeнию пpoизвoдcтвa, ocнoвaннoгo нa пpинципax кpиптoгpaфии в cpeдe pacпpeдeлённыx peecтpoв («мaйнинг»), включaя peгиcтpaцию xoзяйcтвyющиx cyбъeктoв, ocyщecтвляющиx тaкyю дeятeльнocть, a тaкжe oпpeдeлeниe пopядкa eё нaлoгooблoжeния;")
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Board Trading Discussion
Re: Can I trade my Bitcoin after confirmation of a fork?
by
BlueSword
on 23/10/2017, 21:34:58 UTC
Bitcoin Gold supposedly has replay protection, so at least in theory, after 6 confirmation of block 491407, you should be able to spend Bitcoin from a Bitcoin address while keeping the Bitcoin Gold on that address.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Taking Courses to learn about Bitcoin
by
BlueSword
on 15/10/2017, 16:55:26 UTC
Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Technical Support
Re: How much do people fear key loggers?
by
BlueSword
on 09/10/2017, 12:31:03 UTC
I am trying to build an open source wallet which will use your fingerprint to encrypt the wallet.dat file, along with password and 2FA encryption, that will be one of the solutions.
I don't understand what threat model this is protecting against; can you please elaborate?  If your OS is compromised with malware that can steal your encrypted wallet and your password, can't it just as easily steal your plaintext wallet after you decrypt it?  Although hardware keyloggers that sit between the keyboard and the computer do exist, this requires an attacker to have physical access to your machine, and in that case you're basically screwed anyway.

Other than that your current best option is to get a windows copy from microsoft and do a brand new offline installation of windows
A fresh install of MS Windows is certainly more secure than an OEM install that is potentially compromised with crapware such as Superfish.  But Windows itself still has a huge attack surface.  Personally, I'd recommend a smaller, security-focused OS such as FreeBSD.

Don't use ISO files from the internet, they can be modified quiet easily.
Most ISOs have signed hashes that you can verify after downloading (e.g., https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.1R/CHECKSUM.SHA256-FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE-amd64.asc).  Of course, this requires you to trust the public key that was used to sign the hash, but the chain of trust must be rooted somewhere.
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Topic
Board Legal
Re: Tax implications of staking (proof-of-stake) or running a masternode
by
BlueSword
on 08/10/2017, 22:02:44 UTC
IANAL, but it seem to me that each payment would be taxed as ordinary income, provided that the received asset is liquid and there is a well-functioning exchange to determine its fair-market value (in USD).  The IRS FAQ (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf) mentions that it might also be subject to self-employment tax if carried on as a business as opposed to a hobby.
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Topic
Board Bitcoin Technical Support
Re: How much do people fear key loggers?
by
BlueSword
on 08/10/2017, 21:31:13 UTC
Best bet is to use a clean machine with a wired keyboard.  (Wireless/Bluetooth keyboards have a greater attack surface.)  A simple trick is to not enter your password completely sequentially, but instead to enter some of it, then reposition your cursor using the mouse, and then type the rest of it.  This will likely thwart attacks not targeted specifically at you, at least as long as this technique isn't widely used. 
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Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: How can we save Bitcoin from quantum computing?
by
BlueSword
on 08/10/2017, 20:56:02 UTC
To brute-force pre-image resistance of hash functions such as SHA256, a quantum computer would still need to perform a number of operations proportional to the square root of the number of operations performed by a normal computer.  Therefore, simply doubling the number of bits (e.g., switching from SHA256 to SHA512) would provide quantum-resistant security equivalent to existing security against normal computers.  (Note that sqrt(2^512) = 2^256.)

The vast majority of Bitcoin UTXOs include only a hash of a ECDSA public key, not the ECDSA key itself.  Therefore, if the public key has not already been revealed, an attacker would need to (1) sniff a transaction as it is entered into the mempool, (2) crack the private key, (3) create a new transaction using the private key, and (4) get this new transaction committed to a block before the legitimate owner's transaction.  To guard against this attack, Bitcoin would need to add support for quantum-resistant asymmetric cryptography.  Unfortunately, this field is still immature, and existing quantum-resistant asymmetric cryptographic schemes (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography) are much less practical than ECDSA.  But it is likely that they will develop to be the point of being practical before quantum computing poses a severe risk to Bitcoin.  In fact, it is not even known for sure that quantum computing will ever economically scale to the point where it can attack 256-bit ECDSA.
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Topic
Board Altcoin Discussion
Re: Another hard fork coming in October. New Bitcoin name is "Bitcoin Gold"
by
BlueSword
on 30/09/2017, 05:44:15 UTC
Quote
But while those in the know might be skeptical of bitcoin gold, it does have a goal that many in the community may find attractive: creating a truly decentralized bitcoin.

Most notably, the developers behind the network hope to open up mining to more participants by replacing bitcoin's mining algorithm with one that will enable it to be mined with graphics cards. The idea is to make big miners – sometimes controversial figures on the network – less relevant.

"Bitcoin gold will implement a proof-of-work change from bitcoin's SHA256 to Equihash, a memory-hard algorithm that is ASIC-resistant and optimized for GPU mining," explained pseudonymous bitcoin gold developer "The Sorrow."

I have doubts that it would succeed at the above goal (decentralization of mining) if it is successful in getting significant market capitalization.  Once it becomes very profitable to mine, people who live in areas with cheap electricity will heavily mine it to the extent that it would be unprofitable to mine for people with average electricity costs.