The blockchain, in simple words, is a distributed database where nobody adding to it trusts anyone else, but they do, as a whole, trust the collective group of everyone contributing to it.

Something these people are missing is that the blockchain is interesting precisely because of this trust model. The trust model is what makes it able to handle situations that couldn't be handled by a traditional database or even a git repository.

You don't need a blockchain if:

1. You don't need a database, or
2. Nobody but you needs to write to the database, or
3. You trust everyone else who needs to write to the database, or
4. Everyone who needs to write to the database all trust one or more people who can write to the database

The blockchain becomes useful when you have a large number of people who need to write to a database and any one user doesn't trust at least one of [...]]]> A lot of people have recently become very excited about various imagined applications of The Blockchain, which is what underlies Bitcoin.

The blockchain, in simple words, is a distributed database where nobody adding to it trusts anyone else, but they do, as a whole, trust the collective group of everyone contributing to it.

Something these people are missing is that the blockchain is interesting precisely because of this trust model. The trust model is what makes it able to handle situations that couldn't be handled by a traditional database or even a git repository.

You don't need a blockchain if:

1. You don't need a database, or
2. Nobody but you needs to write to the database, or
3. You trust everyone else who needs to write to the database, or
4. Everyone who needs to write to the database all trust one or more people who can write to the database

The blockchain becomes useful when you have a large number of people who need to write to a database and any one user doesn't trust at least one of the other users.

But there's another important component: Your blockchain is useless if you are accepting entries from untrusted users without verifying them, and verification takes time and resources. Bitcoin motivates people to donate their resources because it's tied to a currency so people get some monetary value out of it.

It is difficult to see how smaller and more private blockchains could work while still retaining the properties that makes a blockchain special. Once you strip away those properties, what you have is more like a git repository where you have a chain of transactions which can be verified cryptographically to be in the correct sequence.]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/2015/12/09/who-is-satoshi-nakamoto Wed, 09 Dec 15 18:20:28 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/2015/12/09/who-is-satoshi-nakamoto I'm going to call it now: Dr Craig Wright, the Australian who's been 'unmasked' by Wired, is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.

Satoshi is a man (or woman, or child, or dog, or extra terrestrial) who clearly shuns the limelight and has invested great amounts of effort in being off the radar. Dr Wright doesn't fit this profile at all. He has done the standard publicity generating thing of being just secretive enough that everyone pays attention to him, which perfectly fits his professional interests of being CEO and founder of DeMorgan Ltd, a "pre-IPO" cryptocurrency firm. With publicity comes money.

The Wired article seems pretty compelling until about half way through when they admit that at least some of their best evidence has definitely been doctored. Dr. Wright supposedly made some cryptic hints in posts from 2008 that he was at the centre of an upcoming cryptocurrency (Bitcoin was released in 2009), but it turns out that these hints were actually inserte[...]]]> I'm going to call it now: Dr Craig Wright, the Australian who's been 'unmasked' by Wired, is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.

Satoshi is a man (or woman, or child, or dog, or extra terrestrial) who clearly shuns the limelight and has invested great amounts of effort in being off the radar. Dr Wright doesn't fit this profile at all. He has done the standard publicity generating thing of being just secretive enough that everyone pays attention to him, which perfectly fits his professional interests of being CEO and founder of DeMorgan Ltd, a "pre-IPO" cryptocurrency firm. With publicity comes money.

The Wired article seems pretty compelling until about half way through when they admit that at least some of their best evidence has definitely been doctored. Dr. Wright supposedly made some cryptic hints in posts from 2008 that he was at the centre of an upcoming cryptocurrency (Bitcoin was released in 2009), but it turns out that these hints were actually inserted into older posts in 2013, so actually look more like attempts to rewrite history rather than premonitions.

One of the points about Dr Wright inviting replies using a public key which is associated elsewhere to "satoshin@vistomail.com" address is also not as interesting as it first seems, because there is no record of Satoshi ever using that address. Satoshi instead used "satoshi@vistomail.com". This itself looks like intentional impersonation.

What we have here is a volume of circumstantial evidence, a lot of which can be faked relatively easily (update: Vice has investigated and it looks like some of it is faked: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/satoshis-pgp-keys-are-probably-backdated-and-point-to-a-hoax). The evidence never quite provides the definitive proof you might wish for, and indeed, since we are dealing with cryptographic identity, could legitimately ask for. If Satoshi wanted to reveal himself he could do it with a cryptographically signed message.

It's clear that Dr Wright wants people to believe he is Satoshi, but it is entirely unclear that Satoshi wants people to think he is Dr Wright.]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/2013/10/03/silk-road Thu, 03 Oct 13 22:23:59 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/2013/10/03/silk-road The Silk Road events are exciting!

Here's a summary for people who don't know much about Silk Road (including me).

Silk Road is a hidden website (only accessible via an anonymous network called Tor) which is kind of like a black market Ebay, and is used primarily (or at least famously) for selling drugs. Exchanges there are done in a digital currency called BitCoin (whose value is now likely to tank, at least temporarily, as SilkRoad was one of relatively few places that you can actually use them). Silk Road was interesting for being a strange little centre of crypto-anarchism. Although the focus was drugs, the people selling were supposedly regular-ish people making them in smallish quantities and selling them to recreational users. Supposedly. Certainly a lot different than buying it on the street from your local crime lord, anyway.

It was run by the Dread Pirate Roberts ([SPOILER] aka Westley aka Ross Ulbricht) who has now been arrested. The DPR engaged in a battle of wits with a user called[...]]]> The Silk Road events are exciting!

Here's a summary for people who don't know much about Silk Road (including me).

Silk Road is a hidden website (only accessible via an anonymous network called Tor) which is kind of like a black market Ebay, and is used primarily (or at least famously) for selling drugs. Exchanges there are done in a digital currency called BitCoin (whose value is now likely to tank, at least temporarily, as SilkRoad was one of relatively few places that you can actually use them). Silk Road was interesting for being a strange little centre of crypto-anarchism. Although the focus was drugs, the people selling were supposedly regular-ish people making them in smallish quantities and selling them to recreational users. Supposedly. Certainly a lot different than buying it on the street from your local crime lord, anyway.

It was run by the Dread Pirate Roberts ([SPOILER] aka Westley aka Ross Ulbricht) who has now been arrested. The DPR engaged in a battle of wits with a user called Vizzini FriendlyChemist, who somehow got hold of a large list of SR users and tried to blackmail DPR. DPR tried to hire a hitman to have FriendlyChemist killed for a third of the blackmail price, but did so in a rather blasé way that suggests he might have known that the hitman was in fact FriendlyChemist, and thereby convinced FriendlyChemist to accept a smaller sum of money than originally asked for in exchange for not having a real hitman after him.

(Or maybe DPR didn't know and really did want to kill FriendlyChemist. I have no idea. You have to admire his dedication to his users' privacy, anyway)

According to the documents, it looks like Prince Humperdinck the FBI didn't compromise Tor. It looks like DPR was sloppy and left enough clues lying around to paint his real identity as being an interesting individual. Apparently he ordered some fake IDs which were intercepted at the US border and resulted in a visit from a law enforcement agency, whom he told "Anyone can buy order IDs from Silk Road with Bitcoin". Nothing suspicious there, just an average citizen mysteriously targeted for a batch of fake IDs who also happens to have a surprisingly good knowledge of online black markets. Perfectly normal.

Regardless, relying on Tor is a bad idea, because:

1. The FBI might have compromised Tor and used this to discover the circumstantial evidence which they then presented as their investigation in an effort to keep their knowledge of Tor quiet
2. Tor is a relatively small network and a well funded agency could learn a lot about the network simply by putting a lot of the machines on it.

The overall point is: If you've got something to hide, don't get sloppy (hint: you will) and don't use Tor.

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