asciilifeform: mp, i liked your telling. let's have it
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: old owner still had working passwords - half a year after the transfer was completed" << Butugichag is waiting with open arms for these fine folks.
asciilifeform: virtually no one gets to 'design a computer' now. (not apple, either.) they get to glue the same old crap together in mildly-different ways.
asciilifeform: i mention this in the hope of making it clear how pervasive the architectural problem mentioned in MP's piece is.
asciilifeform: question should've been more specific: 'what if' a 'soviet clone' of mpex, that is, one which bows in agreement to all of the technical decisions.
asciilifeform: FL isn't a hg arc lamp, the 'fluorescent' refers to the inner coating of the bulb, well, fluorescing.
asciilifeform: "Bitcoin interests me as an obvious example of a technological jewel tossed around aimlessly by the brutal hands of cave men. I cant help but picture a flashlight or a radio set, left behind in the wilderness by geologists, to be picked up later by some Stone Age aboriginals; to be fought over and worshiped. Until the batteries run out. But the batteries have not yet run out!" -- old turd of mine
asciilifeform: birthing a parsimonious implementation of something (i.e. one that can actually be understood) is not necessarily the same as the student pissing contest of 'write the shortest hello world for ms-dos in asm'
asciilifeform: (what values of 'reasonable', depends on the intrinsic complexity of the problem.)
asciilifeform: the question is not of a 'perfect' implementation,
asciilifeform: mike_c: i'd love to read 'Bitcoin, the book.' with rationales. but it would be of little worth without a strictly-minimal, brain-loadable reference implementation.
asciilifeform: sort of how i once pontificated re: fpga implementation of bitcoind (e.g. verilog) would be a good 'cruft shedder' exercise.
asciilifeform: i still predict that gox et al will eventually 'repay' the chumps in a scamcoin minted for the purpose.
asciilifeform: "To this day pots of late-Roman gold are periodically dug up in England during excavations of Roman villas; the residents of these villas were unable to derive any benefit from their hoards as their empire collapsed and the Dark Age closed in around them." (further from herr Orlov)
asciilifeform: ifetimes some tin-pot pseudo-nationalist leader will print up ugly slips of paper with pictures of dead people, Masonic symbols and big numbers, and attempt to charge people for using them as a medium of exchange in all transactions, and your great-grandchildren need to know, from an early age, that it is a scam. It is an official scvam, backed up by the threat of violence, but it is still a scam."
asciilifeform: en they will probably think that anyway, because by then you probably will be. But it certainly won't be helpful to hold on to multiple shoeboxes full of old currency, because then your great-grandchildren will think that you are in fact insane, because no sane person would be hoarding such trash. It is important that they don't think that, because the lesson is an important one: chances are that during their l
asciilifeform: -ruble note, which seemed like a lot of money to me at the time, and was very surprised to hear that it was completely worthless and that I could take one and use it as a bookmark (which I did). It was not until the 1990s that Russia again issued a note in that denomination, which likewise became worthless soon after it was printed."
asciilifeform: prediction: at some point ATMs will require the user to stuff his hand in a 'monkey trap.' if the transaction is deemed 'suspicious', the clamps close.
asciilifeform: (at one time, and perhaps still, the courts there presumed guilt on the part of the complaining card holder)
asciilifeform: one important fact is that u.s. card issuers love sending 'spam cards' via mail
asciilifeform: http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2014/Kaspersky-Lab-Uncovers-The-Mask-One-of-the-Most-Advanced-Global-Cyber-espionage-Operations-to-Date-Due-to-the-Complexity-of-the-Toolset-Used-by-the-Attackers
asciilifeform: as observed by MP and others.
asciilifeform: (more or less simply 'strela' with the seek-trigger taped down.)
asciilifeform: brilliant simplicity, unmanned aerial 'mine.'
asciilifeform: pilots are human, when idiot employers/officials offer paid sick leave for an imaginary injury, they're happy to run with it.
asciilifeform: they make IR (ocular compatible) laser sights now, because u.s. polizei can't hit a victim from across the street otherwise.
asciilifeform: yes. perhaps physics has been cancelled by imperial decree, and we're all fools.
asciilifeform: the ddos crap is a pill against folks like MP, who have declared that they'll stick with ancient versions of bitcoind.
asciilifeform: there's a difference between 'amply paid' and $MAXINT
asciilifeform: if the rewrite were compact enough to be auditable with reasonable effort, it would be worth considering regardless of the authorship
asciilifeform: often wonder when/if we'll see a sane reimplementation of bitcoind.
asciilifeform: if bugged cell phones were presided over by Meta-NSA instead of classic nsa, the buggers would store compressed audio and piss it out in bursts when plugged into the mains
asciilifeform: example:
asciilifeform: still waiting to see an 'mpexian' exchange with no www site, operated entirely by coded TX amounts.
asciilifeform: which is why the 'perfect dpr' owns no computer, neither do his friends, and is, in fact: a dentist. (whose name we will never learn.)
asciilifeform: they'll simply 'repay' their chumps in 'goxcoin', as soon as mr. k gets gcc working on his box.
asciilifeform: pwned in the sense of certain people taking home astronomically-improbable winnings
asciilifeform: complete with master keys (bonus if hidden), artificial infusions of fiat to pump up 'value', collaboration with governments...
asciilifeform: the 'trivial solution' would be, somewhat obviously: everybody pgp-signs all wot ops, and people simply mirror the results
asciilifeform: just 5 guys signed up for MP's party?
asciilifeform: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2553964/CEO-commits-suicide-nail-gun-company-investigation.html
asciilifeform: ah that's lame. should be diddled in a way that survives recompile.
asciilifeform: if lifted from classic btc, it's compatible.
asciilifeform: what's the plan? dump when moon is full?
asciilifeform: broadcom inc. tempted them with at-cost cpu offer
asciilifeform: (hanging upside-down with arse tubes in a camp)
asciilifeform: i can already see the chinese world of warcraft labour camps switching.
asciilifeform: i'm still waiting for 'slavecoin.' it would be the perfect 'gift from the gods' to the 'anyone with a computer Ought to Matter!' crowd.
asciilifeform: note that it is not, in principle, impossible to pull it off
asciilifeform: every altcoin is really an attempt to 'refight the war'
asciilifeform: (actual competence / contacts in black market)
asciilifeform: confession: at one point when i was younger, i did succumb to the temptation to replicate various soviet experiments and put current through my brain.
asciilifeform: simple recipe:
asciilifeform: mike_c: if pump'n'dump is a type of honest business, i'd hate to see what a scam is now
asciilifeform: and chumps will flock to them.
asciilifeform: in the latter, fiat infusions will make these boobycoins appear to be (temporarily) valuable
asciilifeform: the proliferation of chumpcoins sets the stage for this
asciilifeform: the trouble with chump harvesting, morals aside, is that there is always a new, slicker chump-harvesting artist coming to town.
asciilifeform: ThickAsThieves: good luck with the chump harvesting.
asciilifeform: take classic btc. it was a net gain in wealth, rather than simply a machine from moving money from one pocket to another, because it made new things possible. what new things does the altcoin-of-the-day make possible?
asciilifeform: every cryptocoin can be seen as an attempt to 'replay the history of money'
asciilifeform: the overflow works elsewhere, these folks only looked at the winblows example.
asciilifeform: .22, 'olympic' caliber, favourite of executioners around the world
asciilifeform: herbijudlestoids: i'm feeling generous, have an example:
asciilifeform: by carrying out certain computations.
asciilifeform: the inevitable boojum of conventional computing is that a boobytrap, no matter how clever, could eventually be stumbled upon by some clever soviet kid with a copy of 'ida'
asciilifeform: they would like to create (and then mandate) computing machinery that cannot be audited for security even in principle.
asciilifeform: so, worked example:
asciilifeform: certain people would /love/ a mathematically-impenetrable boobytrap.
asciilifeform: if it 'keeps key safe' via the whole proggy becoming the key, you haven't accomplished much
asciilifeform: lift it, accomplish the same purpose.
asciilifeform: i live right outside of a big uni, whose comp sci dept. pisses out a never-ending supply of this crud.
asciilifeform: there is already a hard impossibility proof of turing-complete computation in a homomorphic turd.
asciilifeform: 6) All of this is based on mathematical computational assumptions, which may be proven false by future algorithmic advances.
asciilifeform: 3) The right way to think of what secure obfuscation allows is to create, *under many technical conditions*, software that has secrets built into it. These secrets are used by the software to compute output, and yet the secrets remain hidden even if an attacker obtains the entire machine-level code of the software, which of course the attacker could run and analyze. Thus the attacker would be able to *use* the
asciilifeform: I am a co-author of the research quoted in the article. I realize it is likely pointless to write this comment in an Internet forum, but let me attempt to clarify the situation, in the hope that some thoughtful participants will find it useful. Please note: I will not be monitoring this forum in the future. If you are a researcher, please feel free to contact me.
asciilifeform: homomorphic crypto seems to have the ancient appeal of other proven impossibilities, like perpetuum mobile.
asciilifeform: i did think that mpoe-pr lurks hidden somewhere here.
asciilifeform: i dare to predict: there will come a slick charlatan who will 'improve! the crypto!'
asciilifeform: not a physical impossibility, by any means
asciilifeform: i can easily picture, for example, a 'revolutionary! amazing! genuinely Alt' coin, with subtly pre-broken crypto.
asciilifeform: nubbins`: this would explain the fact that everybody loved a good impalement, etc. in times gone by. but hanging? seems boring.
asciilifeform: no gore as such, even. never having attended a hanging, i've no idea why the audience creams its pants along with the fellow dancing the hempen jig
asciilifeform: Vexual: if your idea of a portable computer is a briefcase with a tv and raspi, more power to you
asciilifeform: decimation: not even talking about re-inventing computing here (that's what my blob is for...) but just a decent unixlike portable
asciilifeform: Mats_cd03: all you need is a machine with documented, well-behaved (at least to the desktop standard) components.
asciilifeform: well, to be fair, if the participants paid for food/housing with btc, there might've been an actual body count rather than simple whining
asciilifeform: one could conceivably implement it as a 'dead man's switch'
asciilifeform: rng is simply a part therein
asciilifeform: naturally, a discerning chump will insist on parking in a mass grave of his peers, not some lonely hole in an abandoned lot
asciilifeform: other than chump-vacuuming, you mean ?
asciilifeform: traditional argument - if enough of the hoard were dumped, one could see a catastrophic stampede
asciilifeform: the uninitiated tend to group mpex as 'something somebody wrote'
asciilifeform: re: mpex performance and outraged lusers: there was an article, many years ago, discussing an overheard: 'is that a real program, or is that something somebody wrote'
asciilifeform: but worlds with mass chumpcasting don't produce caesars.
asciilifeform: where, in principle, one can radiate sufficiently little at any given point of spectrum to make classical triangulation virtually impossible
asciilifeform: if no consumer ever bought a winblows pc in a retail shop again, it would survive in something close to its current size, simply from the government largesse
asciilifeform: and ms isn't a company in the sense of, say, coca cola (or even the original 'standard oil') - it's a crown monopoly
asciilifeform: nubbins`: don't be surprised if mac os '11' or whatnot simply refuses to run 'unsigned' apps
asciilifeform: no one would've dreamed of trying to implement a cpu on one
asciilifeform: they were well-documented and extremely simple, because they were originally just a substitute for buckets of PALs/GALs
asciilifeform: docs only, or the complete chip mask and sources for the latter ?
asciilifeform: this is how soviet clones of DEC chips ended up exact duplicates, complete with the (poorly translated, with a dictionary, by DEC) profanities
asciilifeform: but presumably they simply use pirated tool chain
asciilifeform: the internals really are somewhat complicated
asciilifeform: if you are considering a machine for the comparison, you are in a state of sin.
asciilifeform: one can take photos, sufficiently detailed to include imperfections of the pcb, solder joints, etc. and sign them
asciilifeform: pankkake: there are two identical rngs (removable.) each is an analogue device, with convenient probe points and a very simple circuit (29 parts, 26 of them passives)
asciilifeform: recipe for those disinclined to be chumped: 1) read published (3 yrs +) verilog src for sha256. 2) build. 3) see minimum gate count for unrolled hasher 4) laugh
asciilifeform: other components (buckling springs, controller, chassis) can be sourced or laser cut
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: IANAL, but this tidbit seems to signal the final, complete death of the 19th century u.s. law known as 'posse comitatus act'
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: complicated. people would plunder every graveyard they can find before selling their own parts.
asciilifeform: (a SlaveCoin would, hypothetically, do to human labour what bitcoin did to computing power)
asciilifeform: the most educational possible outcome of the circus is: use of bitcoin is banned under penalty of cranked impalement - and continues enthusiastically regardless.
asciilifeform: that is, MOV predicated on flags, a la conditional jumps
asciilifeform: mission accomplished.
asciilifeform: remaining question is, would banks move to challenge/response silicon cards first, or just focus on hunting down and impaling the hypothetical daring 'dread pirate'
asciilifeform: it's a simple, if suicidally dangerous, solution to 'how to teleport fiat'
asciilifeform: many differences, yes. chinese have a few thou. yrs. of practice collapsing empire and re-constituting, etc.
asciilifeform: fact is, every mega-empire has 'fault lines', along which it can be cleaved, whether by 'natural' decay, or external 'help.'
asciilifeform: ukraine is a complicated beast. most of the folks there with 'national identity' are actually from the western half (really, pre-partition poland)
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: afaik, no one sells a usable pc-compatible chording kbd
asciilifeform: and stuck doing compile on a pentium 1...
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: and what if i were 'civilian', rather than a weirdo with a physical drive hooked through a dongle to a vm for installs/overnight compile of whatever
asciilifeform: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/22982/Symbolics/ (not mine, but good picture)
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: (unrelated) i now sympathize with your travails re: that Mac SE
asciilifeform: know how in the early days of computing they had 'delay line memory'?
asciilifeform: they simply write to a flash card
asciilifeform: like pumping as many watts of broadcast as possible over all digital TV channels, if the panic button is pressed
asciilifeform: (example of 'zerocoin' etc)
asciilifeform: best thing is, any hypothesis in the field is immediately testable, all you need is a computer.
asciilifeform: ;;rate bingoboingo 2 retrocomputing archaeology enthusiast, intelligent commentary.
asciilifeform: we're all in approx. the same age 'band', old enough to be in a hurry, young enough not to be impotent yet
asciilifeform: i can't say that i've collected every known sample, but virtually all crap artists are using some variant of gpu-capable miner
asciilifeform: "something important happens when a previously privileged position in society suddenly sees incredibly demand that needs to be filled, using enormous quantities of manpower. that happened to programming computers about a decade ago, or maybe two. first, the people will no longer be super dedicated people, and they won't be as skilled or even as smart -- what was once dedication is replaced by greed and someti
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: hard (but not impossible!) to cross-compile winblows trojans under mac os.
asciilifeform: just an example of 'clean isp'
asciilifeform: stego example
asciilifeform: 100 amps per?
asciilifeform: btc priv. key is: compact, and (can be) used rarely
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: you may have 'jumped the gun' with the bsd piece. the peanut gallery won't believe until theo admits.
asciilifeform: anyone remember the bulbs they used to have in street lamps? the size of a man's head?
asciilifeform: the luminosity/watt claims (transparently bogus, visit an electronics store) and the lifespan claims (chinese driver electronics in the lamp base)...
asciilifeform: i still have yet to see an led lamp that will evenly light a room without being the size of a small tv set.
asciilifeform: worst part is that in this latter case, the devil occasionally appears and shits out a little gold, just enough to temp the sinner into being stupider
asciilifeform: watch for bumps.
asciilifeform: (unless you're a complete noob)
asciilifeform: if i want coldwallets in ampoules, i'll seal them myself
asciilifeform: you could improve virtually any field, not only physics, with Extreme Muppet Removal Algorithm (TM)
asciilifeform: compiler diddler is a dime a dozen: any EXE-infector on winblows technically qualifies.
asciilifeform: as for the political component, zimmerman already fucked the public goat with the closed-source 'silent circle'
asciilifeform: why is being eaten by dingo to be avoided, compared to, say, wolf ?
asciilifeform: translation: experts want to buy cheap coin, time for chumps to sell
asciilifeform: 'tiger' tank is even more complex.
asciilifeform: gasenwagen - russian corruption of 'gaswagen' - in actuality, merely a truck powered by coal gas (wood stove bolted on the back, pumps out CO, which you can just barely run an engine on.)
asciilifeform: like the proverbial kid who sneaks into the school computer to change grades
asciilifeform: far more likely is the traditional hypothesis (bait), or a simple laundry.
asciilifeform: dollars to doughnuts, the receiver for these broadcasts doesn't implement a full node
asciilifeform: 'don't show these. this is a chumpnet artist'
asciilifeform: who wouldn't love to see the server log for https://blockchain.info/address/1HrMpG9JZ71gzXHPdyo2dwcExhKRGtBjQg# ?
asciilifeform: these may well be commands for a chumpnet.
asciilifeform: man with at least the brain of a slug would attempt to clean the booty somehow
asciilifeform: i always thought it was a practical measure, to let people skimp on assaying
asciilifeform: fungibility in this case is an ideal, not the actual reality on the ground (atoms of Au are fungible, btc aren't - at least, as presently implemented)
asciilifeform: btc is heavy on the concrete and steel; 'curecoin' (for example) is mostly tape.
asciilifeform: crackpot hypothesis: every new cryptocoin can be seem as an attempt to 'replay' the history of money
asciilifeform: (coin with 'useless' workfunction, difficulty rampup, all the things we know and love)
asciilifeform: that'd be an example of the 'promises'
asciilifeform: or it were somehow impossible to obtain cheaply
asciilifeform: did someone simply uncomment the scripting module in classic bitcoin?
asciilifeform: (how to pwn an apartment complex full of cable modems simultaneously - exercise for alert reader!)
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: problem with ancient laptops is the almost total impossibility of finding a working battery.
asciilifeform: considering the inclination of usg to run things at a loss (so long as said loss can be pawned off on some chump),
asciilifeform: i think mp once mused about body parts as currency
asciilifeform: conspicuously missing from the catalogue - lamp shades...
asciilifeform: good example from (relatively) recent times
asciilifeform: and how this was imposed from above by bureaucrats.
asciilifeform: almost anything that goes with a laser cutter (ventilation hardware, compressors, pumps)
asciilifeform: for details regarding how, ask mircea, i believe he has a simple mechanism in mind.
asciilifeform: actually the costliest component on that board, not counting the board itself (as published in mircea's statement)
asciilifeform: as someone who was actually paid to (attempt) protein folding, it is especially funny to me.
asciilifeform: and get pissed when confronted with counter-example
asciilifeform: (it is said that very interesting punishments were invented for the latter, by survivors of such attempts)
asciilifeform: pgpdump
asciilifeform: ;;market this is bogus because it disregards stampede effect.
asciilifeform: idiots couldn't even be bothered to implement 'port knocking.'
asciilifeform: (legend re: american company buying the first japanese transistors; in the u.s. at the time it was customary to request '5% defectives' or whatnot; factory didn't test.'
asciilifeform: they all flood if the pumps aren't working
asciilifeform: if you could build with 'aerogel' insulation, you could heat the house with just your body + computer.
asciilifeform: the20year: heat pump
asciilifeform: it doesn't get any simpler than a stirling engine.
asciilifeform: you could run a computer on anything that combusts.
asciilifeform: i overheard my neighbours talking about dumping their savings into AM some time ago
asciilifeform: no phalse phlag is complete without one of these!
asciilifeform: people using winblows and btc together should also smoke at petrol pumps
asciilifeform: there are tor exits silently pumping ascii through 'sed' or the like, slipping 'friendly' btc addrs in place of originals.
asciilifeform: it is important to understand that once an enemy captures a cardano and lifts the private key, he can sign whatever he pleases.
asciilifeform: because 1) it is cost-prohibitive, and more importatly, 2) flies in the face of auditability
asciilifeform: most importantly, it is not designed to resist physical dissection.
asciilifeform: (would have to be a chump to belive this, of course)
asciilifeform: afghan, 'graveyard of empires', etc
asciilifeform: orlov is a reluctant, dour sort of 'statist', he sees mega-empires as inevitable, but likewise their collapse.
asciilifeform: orlov's painfully-repeated point is that systems with infinite growth assumptions baked in are worse than straight theft
asciilifeform: vomits over the now-empty canvas
asciilifeform: possibly mongolia (or some other entirely un-drilled place) is the real champ.
asciilifeform: or witness 'Crypto AG' - swiss company; founded by best friend of the founder of... nsa. owned by: no one knows, probably usg.
asciilifeform: the chumps, one inescapably concludes, demand to be pwned.
asciilifeform: asynchronous circuit (people have actually built classical CPUs with these, 1/3 or so the power consumption of ordinary ones)
asciilifeform: there's worked arithmetic examples in there
asciilifeform: more complicated than that
asciilifeform: nope. balanced ternary not only packs denser (ideal base is 'e' from that standpoint) but gives considerably simpler circuits.
asciilifeform: ThickAsThieves: much easier would be a crown-imposed altcoin
asciilifeform: there was the honeypot one that shat out its complete customer list
asciilifeform: implication is that he failed to 'hold his liquor'
asciilifeform: not unlike, if i'm not mistaken, what is happening with mpex.
asciilifeform: 'ponzi retirement' had ample precedent: 'Tontine.'
asciilifeform: i might be the 'submarine' champ here. 32 sq. m.
asciilifeform: dead component in question is the motor driver board
asciilifeform: ;;later tell mircea_popescu '2013-12-19 09:12:30: CAM Review Complete; Order In Production'
asciilifeform: ;;later tell mircea_popescu '2013-12-19 09:12:30: CAM Review Complete; Order In Production'
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: this attack is simply a variant of the traditional 'Differential Power Analysis'
asciilifeform: paging mp: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/12/18/india-diplomat-us-immunity/4108553/
asciilifeform: unrelated: crypto-auction! https://groups.google.com/d/msg/urbit-dev/KNkFS_34P_I/RQmpPTkP2tcJ
asciilifeform: basic idea is to 'compress' time and space simultaneously
asciilifeform: anyone who wants to show off can do this already simply by using the weapon 'in anger' the usual way.
asciilifeform: 'Just plug in the USB Key and let your computer log in to windows automatically!'
asciilifeform: re: urbit: anyone curious about my answer to the quandary 'so, how the hell /should/ we build a computer' is invited to read:
asciilifeform: that was simply an answer to the question 'if it catches on, won't someone slip appropriate silicon under it.'
asciilifeform: since this is important, i'll repeat it: you can have a cryptowidget that nukes itself when disassembled, circuits potted in unobtainium, etc. or you can have one whose function you can personally verify. can't have both. 'fried ice.'
asciilifeform: 4) process into gpg-compatible key.
asciilifeform: cardano key extraction is not physically impossible (that'd be a lie) - just non-trivial.
asciilifeform: the barometer example is just one of a poorly-specified problem
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: the real shocker was that the 'back hump' did not cough up a model of the problem. even a wrong one.
asciilifeform: and these sample people think that training circus animals is cruel.
asciilifeform: 'the camel has two humps.'
asciilifeform: i still suspect that there is a large - but finite - supply of chumpatron fuel. at least of any particular variety.
asciilifeform: say beijing builds an optical computer out of unobtainium