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The Math Behind Bitcoin
One reason Bitcoin can be confusing for beginners is that the technology behind it redefines the concept of ownership.
To own something in the traditional sense, be it a house or a sum of money, means either having personal custody of the thing or granting custody to a trusted entity such as a bank.
With Bitcoin the case is different. Bitcoins themselves are not stored either centrally or locally and so no one entity is their custodian. They exist as records on a distributed ledger called the block chain, copies of which are shared by a volunteer network of connected computers. To “own” a bitcoin simply means having the ability to transfer control of it to someone else by creating a record of the transfer in the block chain. What grants this ability? Access to an ECDSA private and public key pair. What does that mean and how does that secure Bitcoin?
Let’s have a look under the hood.
...SNIP...
Conclusion
For those of you who saw all the equations and skipped to the bottom, what have we just learned?
We have developed some intuition about the deep mathematical relationship that exists between public and private keys. We have seen how even in the simplest examples the math behind signatures and verification quickly gets complicated, and we can appreciate the enormous complexity which must be involved when the parameters involved are 256-bit numbers. We have seen how the clever application of the simplest mathematical procedures can create the one-way “trap door” functions necessary to preserve the information asymmetry which defines ownership of a bitcoin. And we have newfound confidence in the robustness of the system, provided that we carefully safeguard the knowledge of our private keys.
In other words, this is why it is commonly said that Bitcoin is “backed by math.”
If you hung in through the complicated bits, we hope it gave you the confidence to take the next step and try out the math on your own (a modular arithmetic calculator makes the finite field math much easier). We found that going through the steps of signing and verifying data by hand provides a deeper understanding of the cryptography that enables Bitcoin’s unique form of ownership.
Monsanto is not alone in trying to silence its critics. As Rachel Aviv of the New Yorker and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! reported, after fifteen years of research, Tyrone Hayes, University of California–Berkeley professor of integrative biology, determined that Syngenta’s herbicide atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs and could cause the same problems for humans. The company now known as Syngenta hired Hayes to research atrazine in 1997. But when his findings ran contrary to their interests, they refused to allow him to publish and instead worked to discredit him. He left Syngenta in 2001, but continued to research the harmful effects of atrazine on the endocrine system.
Court documents from a class action lawsuit against Syngenta show how the company sought to smear Hayes’s reputation and to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable chemical, which is already banned by the European Union. The company’s public relations team drafted a list of four goals. Reporter Rachel Aviv wrote, “The first was ‘discredit Hayes.’ In a spiral-bound notebook, Syngenta’s communications manager, Sherry Ford, who referred to Hayes by his initials, wrote that the company could ‘prevent citing of TH data by revealing him as noncredible.’ He was a frequent topic of conversation at company meetings. Syngenta looked for ways to ‘exploit Hayes’ faults/problems.’ ‘If TH involved in scandal, enviros will drop him,’ Ford wrote.”
vi vi vi - editor of the beast
(see attachment in previous post)-app103 (October 13, 2014, 06:40 PM)
Ah, the multiverse, where there are versions of you who are serial killers or bimbos.-Arizona Hot (October 14, 2014, 03:03 PM)
Or turtles that are still too young to leave home.-app103 (October 14, 2014, 04:38 PM)
You see, what we have here is a failure to drink enough coffee...-Edvard (October 13, 2014, 08:36 PM)
@Renegade: i am using NCH PhotoStage Slideshow Producer Professional v2.52, this slideshow application can add videos, music and images in its timeline and sync them to the slider position or anywhere i choose, its a little versatile tool. I found it useful to my need.-hulkbuster (October 12, 2014, 10:41 AM)
I tried my hand at Adobe Flash Professional CS5 , and i had to learn a lot of of smorgasbord of information which was a turn off for me. Lot of learning curve required, although it could creat a swf video and simple vector art movies to my interest but its output was just limited to swf file.-hulkbuster (October 12, 2014, 10:41 AM)
NCH PhotoStage Slideshow can create the finished project to avi, mp4 ,fla for youtube or make a DVD movie.I already completed my presentation and i wanted to add a little video effect before the slideshow begins to make it professional and factual.
Thinking now, i just want a small and simple video effect and not content creation , that is already done.-hulkbuster (October 12, 2014, 10:41 AM)
But people around here are great at suggesting software and discussing some latest subject.
To be frank i think i asked at the wrong forum, but i am not disappointed.-hulkbuster (October 12, 2014, 10:41 AM)
Metering the air isn't far off I'm afraid.-MilesAhead (October 12, 2014, 09:52 AM)
@Renegade:
If you are into this stuff...and/or similar devices, you should check: http://www.free-energy-info.tuks.nl
If you visit...you are transported back to the late nineties. The layout is from those times, even the hosting feels the same. Slightly better than the GeoCities era of the internet. Doesn't necessarily mean the quality of the content is bad.-Shades (October 12, 2014, 01:42 AM)
One word: boycott.-40hz (October 12, 2014, 08:16 AM)
Man I really wish I could save the life of an eccentric millionaire or something and have chunks of money to spread into a ton of "mad science" projects! Inspired by Byte and his "my scale has a HyperTerminal connection and stuff" thread elsewhere, I got to thinking - there's a level of "hacker minimax' where if I could give some bucks to 1000 people, you could do crazy things from computer enabled 2 foot diameter Moslem clocks to DayQuil bottles that can record your observations about your cough!
I'm blinded by science!-TaoPhoenix (October 10, 2014, 07:33 PM)
I would love to see that stuff become commercialized. Just saw "The Signal".
I thought it was beautiful and great, assuming you don't go into it expecting much. I suggest watching it without reading anything about it.-mouser (October 08, 2014, 04:13 AM)
Most of the ones on this list, I used to watch Cartoons of the 60s
Particularly these: 1-6, 16, 25, 42, 46, 64, 70, 75, 79, 81. too numerous to mention by name. I couldn't find the road runner and Wiley e coyote on the list, maybe that was later.-techidave (October 07, 2014, 06:22 AM)
When I was a kid I dropped anything and everything to watch 'Battle of the Planets'...unfortunately, it doesn't stand the test of time for me. I always liked the Looney Tunes better than Tom &Jerry. Especially Wiley E. Coyote. If there is one cartoon character that will teach you about determination...-Shades (October 06, 2014, 10:11 PM)
