
The Crazy Security Behind the Birth of Zcash, the Inside Story - sangfroid
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/the-crazy-security-behind-the-birth-of-zcash
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nickparker
Zcash's more technical blogpost on the process can be found here:

[https://z.cash/blog/snark-parameters.html](https://z.cash/blog/snark-
parameters.html)

Personally, I found it a bit odd that they went through the effort of a multi-
party computation set up, but then allowed cell phones in the room with the
computers and communicated about the computation via Google Hangouts.

The articles both claim side-channel attacks can't be performed on the
processors used with the recording equipment present, but my qualm is we don't
know how capable nation-state actors are in that arena. The creators of Zcash
conversing over Hangouts seems like a surefire way to get the kind of
attention they didn't want. I mean either NSA has already beaten Zcash
soundly, or they'll be surveilling the creators with extreme prejudice and all
but guaranteed to catch a _Google Hangout._

