A valid criticism of Bitcoin's design? - page 2.

maaku

legendary

Activity: 905

Merit: 1012

Quote from: ATC777 on December 17, 2012, 01:01:17 AM

Quote from: coder_guy on December 17, 2012, 12:33:01 AM

What is this I don't even...

I'm trying to make sense of what he's saying so I can respond properly, but it sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about... There are a lot of people participating in the discussion (who know nothing about technology/cryptography) who might be lead astray by tossing around a few $2 words (or I should say 0.148 BTC words lol). Tongue

He doesn't know what he's talking about. The algorithms we know for reversing ECDSA are not polynomial time. Unless he knows something about computational theory that the rest of the world does not, there is no reason to believe that it is even possible for there to exist a polynomial time solution. And with the exponential time solutions which are currently the best we know about, you could literally turn the entire observable universe into a 100% efficient computer and run it until the heat death of the universe, and you you're not likely to find a solution. Moore's law does not apply here.

juhakall

sr. member

Activity: 658

Merit: 250

In the first paragraph, he seems to be thinking that when SHA256 is likely broken in the next 5-10 years, Bitcoin will be doomed. Two questionable assumptions in there: that SHA256 will actually be compromised, and that Bitcoin can't adapt to some new algorithm. Both might turn out to be true, but I wouldn't count on that.

ATC777

member

Activity: 112

Merit: 10

Quote from: coder_guy on December 17, 2012, 12:33:01 AM

What is this I don't even...

I'm trying to make sense of what he's saying so I can respond properly, but it sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about... There are a lot of people participating in the discussion (who know nothing about technology/cryptography) who might be lead astray by tossing around a few $2 words (or I should say 0.148 BTC words lol). Tongue

coder_guy

newbie

Activity: 14

Merit: 0

What is this I don't even...

ATC777

member

Activity: 112

Merit: 10

I was talking to someone about Bitcoin on my brokerage forums and he says:

Not to say it's not acceptible, or that it could not be adjusted, but I give it 5-10 more years max. The premise of elliptic curve cryptography has always been that solving the discrete logarithm for an elliptic curve is not computationally feasible. That said, every few years we hear about someone pounding on one for years and out comes a solution. Realistically though, it is only a matter of time before these can be solved in polynomial time, or computational processing becomes so fast that it doesn't matter for the number of bits employed.

The key is, will ordinary people use this, and the answer is "probably not". As, my occupation is systems design and development, I would consider myself closer to a potential user than ordinary persons, and I wouldn't even consider using Bitcoin for anything. I have no idea though.. anything can catch on. Who would have thought I would ever be able to pay with paypal at Home Depot 10 years ago.

Huh

I'm not even sure what exactly he's talking about... it sounds like he doesn't understand how Bitcoin works and the model of increased mining difficulty as processing power rises?

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