[FRIAM] Blockchain Questions

Fri Mar 10 16:54:37 EST 2017

Hopefully I won't kill this thread too...
If my still somewhat limited sense of blockchain, at least for Bitcoin, is correct, there are two pieces to this process that are being somewhat conflated.  The first is that there is computation required to validate a block of transactions, and that computation requires a lot of horsepower because the first to finish it gets credited with the associated bitcoins.  The result is a hash for the block of transactions which gets added to a publicly available ledger verifying the accuracy of the block.  That calculation can be done by a set of heavy duty machines, but they definitely face competition from bitcoin farms in China (Tibet) where they can get energy for cheap.  
The second "hack" is being able to control or fake the progress of the ledger.  Essentially, more than half of the people calculating the hash for a block need to agree on it to verify that the block is accurate.  If you could throw enough computing power (e.g., a small country's worth) at the Bitcoin process and generate more than hall of all block validations, you could theoretically make up your own (fake) hashes and take control of the ledger because everyone else couldn't override your assertions.  So, it's theoretically possible (and China, if it controlled all bitcoin farmers in the country, is close) to take over the Bitcoin blockchain, but it's practically unlikely.
Brent

      From: Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> 
 Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 4:33 PM
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Blockchain Questions

#yiv3557132097 #yiv3557132097 -- _filtered #yiv3557132097 {panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv3557132097 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv3557132097 {font-family:Consolas;panose-1:2 11 6 9 2 2 4 3 2 4;}#yiv3557132097 #yiv3557132097 p.yiv3557132097MsoNormal, #yiv3557132097 li.yiv3557132097MsoNormal, #yiv3557132097 div.yiv3557132097MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv3557132097 a:link, #yiv3557132097 span.yiv3557132097MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv3557132097 a:visited, #yiv3557132097 span.yiv3557132097MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv3557132097 p {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv3557132097 pre {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:10.0pt;}#yiv3557132097 span.yiv3557132097HTMLPreformattedChar {font-family:Consolas;}#yiv3557132097 span.yiv3557132097EmailStyle20 {color:#1F497D;}#yiv3557132097 .yiv3557132097MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv3557132097 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}#yiv3557132097 div.yiv3557132097WordSection1 {}#yiv3557132097 https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-electricity-as-denmark-by-2020    From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com]On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 2:17 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Blockchain Questions    there is no known way to hack a blockchain, but "wallets" can be stolen - there have been several instances where large bitcoin banks have been hacked and lost all their virtual currency. A friend is a bitcoin miner and he uses four computers, with four heavy duty graphics processors - all water cooled to do so. A lot of computing power but still within the budget of an individual - no where near that of a "small country."    davew       On Fri, Mar 10, 2017, at 08:09 AM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote: 
>From The Verge* with my emphases; 'Like blockchain technologies, this information will be write-only...' - funny! 'Blockchain entities like Bitcoin are distributed among lots of different players require a lot of power (computing and literal) to compile and check —as much as a small country,' - Really? So there's no way to hack a blockchain? Or perhaps I should say why is it so secure? *http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/10/14880094/deepmind-health-uk-data-blockchain-audit Robert C    --  Cirrillian  Web Design & Development Santa Fe, NM http://cirrillian.com 281-989-6272 (cell) Member Design Corps of Santa Fe ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove 

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