The most reliable and secure digital technology ever invented

Dan Kaminsky is an internet security researcher, famous among hackers ‘for

discovering, in 2008, a fundamental flaw in the Internet which would have

allowed a skilled coder to take over any website or even to shut down the

Internet’.

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‘When I first looked at the (Bitcoin) code’, he says, ‘I was sure I was going

to be able to break it. The way the whole thing was formatted was insane. Only

the most paranoid, painstaking coder in the world could avoid making mistakes.’

He devised 15 bugs he thought he could use to hack it. Every time he would

get a response along the lines of ‘Attack Removed’.

‘I came up with beautiful bugs’, he said. ‘But every time I went after the

code there was a line that addressed the problem. I’ve never seen anything like

it…Either there’s a team of people who worked on this or this guy is a genius.’

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Kaminsky continued, ‘Here was a system (that)…Created an enormous

global cloud of always-on, listening machine; Spoke its own fiddly little custom

network protocol; (is) Written in C++, which for all of its strengths is not usually

the safest thing in the world to be reading random internet garbage with; (and)

Directly implemented the delivery of a Pot Of Gold At The End Of The

Rainbow for any hacker who could break it. By all extant metrics in security

system review, this system should have failed instantaneously, at every possible

layer…But the core technology actually works…my fifteen point list of obvious

likely bugs was systematically destroyed by a codebase that quite frankly knew

better.’

What was exceptional was the robustness of Bitcoin. The pitfalls and security

problems that even experienced programmers usually end up accidentally

creating in their code were almost completely absent. The implication was that

Satoshi, coding skills aside, had a great deal of theoretical and practical know-

how. He was savvy. Alessandro Polverini, an Italian coder, tells me in an email,

‘My guess is that Satoshi is not a professional developer but a very highly skilled

hacker, probably working in the security field.’

In fact, the protocol is so bulletproof that it has led some experts to believe a

government agency created it.

You’ve heard about bankruptcies, hackings, thefts and fraud, for example.

This is because companies using the protocol – certain exchanges, for example

(so-called third parties) – have not acted like proper financial institutions.

Certain operating systems using the protocol are insecure, rendering bitcoins

vulnerable to theft. There are also issues with programmers who have failed to

understand the block chain. But while the edges of Bitcoin are vulnerable, the

core protocol is sound.

The simple fact that it works is what has enabled Bitcoin to take off in the

way that it has. It’s also what enabled Satoshi to be so modest in his promotion

of it. Blogger Mike Hearn writes: ‘It cannot be understated: the Bitcoin protocol

is a monumental technological achievement. Regardless of whether the system

will prove to be a real-world alternative to fiat currency, the technical

achievement is undeniable. It solves several previously unsolved cryptographic

problems surrounding “distributed trust” (for example, the Byzantine Generals’

Problem) and synthesizes technologies such as public-key cryptography, proof-

of-work systems (using SHA-256), peer-to-peer and others.’

Nick Szabo, a computer scientist believed by many to be Satoshi, and

inventor of a precursor to Bitcoin called bit gold, wrote in an email to me, ‘The

core protocol of Bitcoin is sound, and has an unprecedented reliability and

security. In other words the core technology is more reliable and secure than any

other digital technology that has ever been fielded.’ That is some achievement.

Some hackers see Bitcoin’s creation as a seminal point in the history of

information technology. Rather as we have BC and AD, they have proposed that

before 3 January 2009 (the date of the Genesis Block) be named Before Satoshi

(BS) and after Bitcoin Era (BE).

That’s a lovely idea – though perhaps BN (Before Nakamoto) is preferable to

BS.

Well done. You’ve just finished the hardest chapter in the book.