I'm probably going to do one step wrongly and get laughed at, but here goes:
7 000 000 000 humans * 0.67 hashes per day = 4 690 000 000 hashes per day (or 54282.4074074 per second)
54282H/s would give us a daily profit of: 0.00078760 BTC ($0.30)
So when the evil space aliens conquers the human race, they can put us to good use to generate 30 cents worth of Bitcoins for them every day (not counting human electricity cost aka food).
Interesting idea, but I think you plugged 54Ghash/sec into the calculator instead of 54Khash/sec, so you're too high by a factor of a million. So it won't be worthwhile for aliens to put us to work in the Bitcoin mines and you can sleep soundly at night.
The current network hash rate is ~240e15 hashes/second (240 million gigahashes/sec). So 54282 hashes/second as a fraction of the current network hash rate is 226e-15, which would yield approximately 5.65e-12 bitcoins every 10 minutes or 814e-12 per day which at current prices (~$400) would be 325e-9 dollars.
So your estimate of 30 cents a day is wildly optimistic.
For humans to have a chance, the rate at which blocks are added to the chain will need to fall from once every 10 minutes to once every 36 hours (or longer). That will make bitcoin useless for most transactions.
You are assuming that the evil aliens would stop our machines from earning them Bitcoins? I was obviously operating on the assumption that these 30 cents would be the little extra they milk out of the useless human population after they have annexed our infrastructure and technology.
Given that the output conditions for a Bitcoin hash are essentially a limited form of preimage attack, I wonder if this "human uses properties of hash function to reduce the problem space, lets the machine bruteforce the rest" method could have any advantage. Machines are great at doing operations quickly, but human brains tend to be far better at noticing patterns and using ingenuity.
I'm a big fan of Ken Shirriff's blog. If you're interested in learning more about bitcoin I would also recommend reading his post titled "Bitcoins the hard way: Using the raw Bitcoin protocol".
I assume there are mathematician farms where they are no longer born but grown for the purpose of finding any possible ways to cut steps from hashing.
Do the chips still run this plain vanilla sha256 algo, or have they found some steps that can be skipped? Things like not calculating the final steps if you notice that there won't be enough zeroes.
I do pay a lot of attention to these things, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody has considered something like this. I'm not sure it would be possible, but it would make for some interesting hardware level optimizations. There's always a chance that some company has figured something out but is keeping it secret to maintain a margin over their competitors.
I didn't know about that, neat! In fact I'm rather proud to say I couldn't have known about it at the time, because it was... hmm... I'm gonna say 1993, give or take a year.
My version had considerably lower resolution, though, since I used quarter-inch grid paper at 8.5x11", so it was 0.125 units per square. :)
Meanwhile, look what I just found while verifying my memory that the core set fits in y = +/- 2.0:
It's too bad they do an arithmetic version. If you do it by hand, going the geometric route is much more fun.
You can interpret the squaring and adding as geometric operation to be done with ruler and compass. If I'm not too lazy, I might write a blogpost about how to do it.
I've used the geometric route for drawing Julia sets, but I don't know how you would do that for the Mandelbrot set, what with a different constant being added for each point and all.
Hmm... I kind of want to figure out a way to make CAPTCHA-coin work now. Cryptocurrency mining for the people!
I just can't think of a good way to generate CAPTCHAs (or something similar) from a block in a fashion that would give human beings a significant edge over computers.
I agree; it's a great demonstration that machines, despite being many orders of magnitude faster, are capable of only the same types of very simple operations that humans can do.
That is one idea intro CS students certainly should get used to, as I've found that manually executing algorithms is good for debugging and learning too.
Yesterday I encrypted a password I couldn't afford to lost by hand with a one-time pad on paper. It took a long time to XOR all the letters - I probably should have used a WWII-era style alphabet mod 25 or something , but I needed symbols, and ended up just doing hex-ascii.
Did you double-check your result using a different method, or at least after some hours (to prevent you from replaying an erroneous calculation)? A calculation error could be disastrous.
A fun future alt-coin gimmick could be to arrange for the first N blocks to be pre-mined by pencil & paper – by invited teams, inside a controlled venue, who have to show their work.
This kind of demonstration is not completely useless, it can be used as part of an argument against software patents.
(We did RSA by hand at my university, and RSA is an obviously mathematical algorithm; to this day, I still don't understand how RSA could be patented in the USA.)
I very strongly disagree. Crypto patents are actively poisonous for engineering, for research and development, and you should feel bad for cheerleading them.
The RSA patent pretty much delayed the adoption of public-key cryptography by circa 20 years; ECC patents, even though many are now expiring, some are still delaying it, and patents were the main reason for the SECP/NIST curve derivation being so very opaque. Patents on some ideal lattice schemes will likely delay their adoption, too.
That's a counterfactual; we don't know what would have happened if patenting RSA wasn't possible in at least one country (it wasn't patented in most of the world). Would its discoverers have published it anyway? Would their publication be known to the creators of the SSL protocol? Would the SSL creators have used a different system if they didn't know of RSA?
The John Nash example tells us nothing, since it was from 30 years earlier (missing the demand from the Web), and he did have the option (which it seems he didn't use) to publish his discovery for the wider public.
And there's independent discovery. RSA had already been independently discovered at least once; we don't know how long it would take until it was independently discovered again, if it hadn't been published that time.
I do remember that the RSA patents were one factor which held back wider adoption of public key encryption; people were anxiously waiting for it to be freed, to the point of scheduling parties for the day the patents expired (only for it to be messed up by the patents being freed a few days earlier).
So using RSA to argue for or against software patents is not a simple matter. But my point was not to argue for or against software patents; what I wanted to know how is how come I always hear that math is not patentable in the USA, yet clearly mathematical algorithms are patented there all the time.
I'm not sure I understand what exactly your arguments for the usability of patents is. I understand you argue RSA was a boon for e-commerce because encryption was a boon for e-commerce. This is true, encryption enabled e-commerce. However, I do not see how patents helped and it looks to me like you made no argument to support that point. Your argument seems to be "RSA built crypto, crypto is useful, RSA had patents, ergo - patents are useful". Such argument is a non-sequitur. And nowhere you proved that "it happened via patents", meaning that patents were necessary for the creation of e-commerce, not just a means for some people to extract some rent from something that would have happened anyway.
John Nash's example is not exactly relevant as in 1955 there was not much to do with encryption - modern e-commerce could not exist back then because there was no supporting technology (like personal computing, widely deployed broadband networks, etc.) to enable it. There are many examples of things invented before it was their time and forgotten, only to be re-discovered later with much success. Specifically, the history of cryptography is ripe with examples of cyphers invented, forgotten, reinvented and re-forgotten, and being misunderstood and mis-applied by powers using it.
You proceed to argue that patents are short. This argument seems to me deficient in two ways. First, if patents are so beneficial, why it is good that they are short? Why not have more of a good thing? Second, the example of copyright and the Mickey Mouse protection laws stretching copyright durations well beyond the original lengths show us that it is much easier to extend the length of the rent-extraction period than keep it short. The only reason why it has not happened yet is that the interested parties do not have enough political clout, and the speed of innovation has been enough that even the relatively short times we have now are enough to extract sufficient rent (with pharma, movement to extension is already happening). However, if the innovation slows down and the clout raises, we will have the same term extensions we have now with copyrights.
I once was an intern in a startup where the founder one day decided we all shall stop using computers one day a week. I could tell a dozen funny stories that arose from it.
You know, it where the golden 90s. Startups did all kind of crazy stuff. Paint their walls pink and what not. We had the wildest parties. The CEO often brought in a bunch of prostitutes and hired well known DJs.
The days of the week with the "no computer" rule slowed down things unbelievably. And has been abandoned after the founder has been kicked out of his own company. To my surprise, it did not kill the company. The company strives on to this day.
prostitutes? I could actually believe what you said until that point. Making a day computer-free is something a crazy startup CEO would do (I could actually see myself doing it but once a month maybe, definitely not once a week).
Apparently you've never been part of the advertisement world or know anyone in it. I have friends in the industry with numerous stories even worse than this. The things apparently that some companies will do to pull in clients is pretty astounding.
>"Apparently you've never been part of the advertisement world or know anyone in it."
It's not just advertising. I'd wager it happens many if not most places where there are contracts to be awarded or specific talent to be retained.
I'd imagine that the folks expressing disbelief are either inexperienced or so obviously 'square' that they're kept totally in the dark about such things.
I've seen one place where it was nearly a standard of 'culture fit'.
Note: I don't mean to condone this sort thing, just to bear witness to its prevalence.
A fairly normal spa massage is done unclothed with a towel covering (the client disproves and covers up while the masseur or masseuse out of the room.)
So, while a massage room might have windows, if it does they almost certainly would be covered completely when in use. So no windows isn't odd for a massage room.
It happens - most recent time I witnessed it was at a company's party in August. Only in the VIP area.. from where I took a few cigars then left to the non-VIP area.
It's legal where this party was (Germany), though that's not to say it doesn't happen in countries where it isn't legal.
There was a fairly big scandal 3 years ago in Germany when the big insurance company Munich Re sponsored prostitutes for its 100 best insurance salesmen. This definitely happens, all the time.
I like to think start-ups offer some unique experiences to their employees. Work that makes you grow as a person. The sort of thing your dad smiles at and points out all that extra hair on your chest.
There's a certain high-level manager at a Valley startup. His team just launched. Everyone's high. Super-buzzed. Nice party. I have a little printed crib-sheet. John. 43. B-school. Wife left. Couldn't handle being a married single mom. Has visiting rights to his daughters, but doesn't have time to exercise them.
It's my job to go home with him. Make it all worth it. Usually these guys are into wife-play. As in, I play the role of their ex. Give them a taste of a still-sizzling marriage for a night. "New honeymoon vibes" is what my boss calls it.
Basically a tailored prostitute for guys who royally fucked up their personal life. Because that's how the modern startup views itself: a family surrogate, and I'm just another extension.
I can see how they'd be able to get away with that, although frankly I'd be wondering who these women nobody seems to know are doing at the party. But I'm pretty sure at this point it's just a culture difference between where I live and Silicon Valley.
I work in a moderately small office, and at least once a week we get semi-random visitors from other offices. At actual parties, people bring their significant others and sometimes their friends - I wouldn't really be surprised to see a new person at a party. In fact, I'd be surprised if only familiar faces were there.
Even in the Valley, an attractive woman rarely is rarely thought of as out of place. People would be too busy hitting on her or admiring from a far to question where she came from in my experience.
Don't leave out a lot of these guy's couldn't land the chick
they think deserve, even after they get that first big check. Don't down vote because it rings too true. Down boys because I'm off base?
Well, a party usually has a lot of people at it. All you need is one person who has qualms and calls the police. I'd have expected that kind of thing to be done with a little bit more discretion and plausible deniability.
The manager answer the door and tells the police that the employee misunderstood, and he'd merely hired dancers for the night. That guy doesn't have a job anymore, and no one is going to get in trouble with the cops.
The only way to be sure that they're prostitutes is to actually have a transaction with one, which if you go to the police about, are more likely to get arrested for than anyone else, since you're the only proven john.
You can be fairly direct with later deniability, and there's an incredibly high cost to being the guy that called the cops.
Why do you think drug use at start-ups is so common, even at work sponsored events?
I've seen off-label pill use, marijuana, and cocaine at work related events (or just casually around the office) in at least 5 states, ranging between the West Coast, the East Coast, and Texas. The settings have ranged from small companies and start-ups (which have the most drug use openly) to large corporations like Microsoft (where people at least hid in the bathroom or private areas while doing lines). Marijuana is the most prevalent that I've seen, at 8 different states and between widely varying social groups.
I've even been offered ADHD meds not prescribed for me by senior people at the company I worked for at the time, to keep me working long hours and more focused at work. (Hey, if it works for college kids, it works for adults.)
The simple answer is that not everyone agrees with laws against vices, particularly things like prostitutes and drug use - and see no reason to follow them.
If you're not aware that things like this happen, you probably give off the impression that you'll try to get people arrested and seriously damage their lives because they take an intoxicant you were told was bad, rather than alcohol or any of the various other legal ones.
tl;dr: It's all over, and if you don't see it, people are actively hiding it for you because they don't trust you to make reasonable choices.
Thanks for the information, but you can keep the needless (and hilariously inaccurate) moralizing.
Where I work, most official work events are set up to allow employees to bring in their kids. I believe most people would not do lines in front of preteens. What people do in private is another thing entirely.
Dropping a comment here because of all the down votes. I agree with them. I come to HN for interesting and thought provoking articles, or for interesting news. Pen-and-paper mining is awesome and is totally in the spirit of HN, but single word jokes about "organic" and "fair trade" Bitcoins are clever, but HN is just the wrong place for that. I'd much rather read comments about attempts of other types of cryptography on paper, or perhaps some history about paper based crypto, or anything that adds factual or newsworthy value to the article. Jokes are neiter factual or newsworthy, and I feel are out of place here on HN.
I think it is a major mistake to reject comedy as it is a vital element of intelligent discussion. Any group that outright bans jokes is only play-acting at being serious for anyone who might be watching.
Interestingly, there was quite a lot of discussion today regarding humor on HN[1]. I for one enjoy the occasional bit of tasteful humor, it would be a shame to restrict the discussion to only "factual or newsworthy" content. As others have mentioned, that wouldn't be a discussion board.
Your complaint adds neither factual nor newsworthy value to the discussion. Arguably, it's even less relevant to the subject than the joke comments you're discussing.
The productive thing would have been to simply ignore them and move on, if you had nothing relevant to add.
Since when was humor disallowed on HN? I think a good unique joke is relevant, as it gets us all excited about the topic. Maybe it doesn't directly add factual information to the subject, but it improves the mood and makes learning more fun.
I mean, sure, we don't want it to be like Reddit, where it's a race to post the cleverest puns, but a chuckle once in a while shouldn't be frowned upon.
I've been dreaming of this art project where I put up tables in the Mission and hire a bunch of Task Rabbits to manually mine Bitcoins while they eat food delivered by ZeroCater
EDIT: Actually that got me thinking - that would be a really good art piece, if you could get them to do something fully self sustaining. There's no reason for them to stop if they're getting paid properly - it's just another task. It's just this weird loop of useless work being done, but still sustaining people's lives. It makes you think about the nature of labor and money.
7 000 000 000 humans * 0.67 hashes per day = 4 690 000 000 hashes per day (or 54282.4074074 per second)
54282H/s would give us a daily profit of: 0.00078760 BTC ($0.30)
So when the evil space aliens conquers the human race, they can put us to good use to generate 30 cents worth of Bitcoins for them every day (not counting human electricity cost aka food).