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’.
24
‘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.’
25
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.
Plagiarism. Original source:
https://books.google.gr/books?id=htliCAAAQBAJ&pg=PT44&lpg=PT44&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
You have no brain at all doing that. What do you expect? That you won't be found?