

Bitcoin Core Development Status Report #2 - bdr
https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=85

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gwillen
Hm, I am Not Happy about a feature of the new protocol. It's unfortunate that
-- although I can hear the gears of politics turning in the document -- the
details of the argument that spawned it are not laid out there for me to read.

In this day and age, using X.509 for something like this is ... pretty bad.
The bitcoin community elsewhere has standardized on PGP, and with very good
reason; X.509 is a well-known clusterfuck.

I understand wanting to include an X.509 option anyway, if the point is not to
improve usability by the bitcoin community, but rather by people who aren't
already in it. But I do not think the lack of a PGP option is excusable, and I
do not wish to see the protocol succeed in its current form for that reason.
(I can't imagine a significant fraction of the bitcoin community will want it
to succeed in this form either.)

~~~
maaku
IIRC (I'm on the developer mailing list, but only skimmed the relevant
thread), the X.509 part has been made optional, and there is support for other
trust mechanisms such as PGP.

~~~
gwillen
Oh, that's fantastic news. Thanks for updating me. I will check out the list
archives to learn more.

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eduardordm
I jumped into that gist hoping to build a prototype for Verifone VeriX.

But unfortunately, this protocol cannot be used in PoS terminals, they are 32
bits and I see no reason why that would change before those kind of terminals
just disappear.

We need something smarter than uint64.

Edit: I really think they need to read about solutions that already exists for
banking & payment communications. They are somewhat compatible with bitcoin.

~~~
daeken
> But unfortunately, this protocol cannot be used in PoS terminals, they are
> 32 bits and I see no reason why that would change before those kind of
> terminals just disappear. > We need something smarter than uint64.

Err, you can use 64-bit integers on 32-bit systems. Or 16-bit systems, or
8-bit systems. Just because it's not the native size for integer math doesn't
mean you can't use it.

~~~
eduardordm
Even if RVDS could do that like gcc or vcc, it would make any operations at
least 60x slower than just using the add instruction directly. Unlike IA32, 32
bits ARM processors have only 32 bits addr space and registers (against 36 bit
in IA32 which allows some 64 bit support) and have no support for 64 bit
operations. You are confusing compiler wizardry and the actual program.

That said, NO you should never do that.

~~~
gizmo686
Where did you get the 60x number from? Using the proccessor's 32-bit primitive
operations, you can treat 64-bit arithmatic as 2-digit arithmetic. If you take
advantage of the carry registers, it seems like you should have no more than
about 3x slow down.

~~~
eduardordm
The sheer number of instructions generated by vcc.

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celticninja
very happy to hear that they are taking Zombie attack into consideration, I am
constantly amazed by the number of companies that do not factor in this
potential threat.

~~~
ashleymoran
Yes. More organisations should follow the lead of Bristol Council:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/07/when-
zombies-a...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/07/when-zombies-
attack-bristol-city-council-undead-invasion) \- Most are are in the deplorable
state of unpreparedness demonstrated by Leicester Council:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-13713798>

