Author: Adam Back 2014-01-03 13:09:11
Published on: 2014-01-03T13:09:11+00:00
The author highlights the importance of verifying the hash of a binary before trusting it with investment funds, just as one would research an investment opportunity. The author notes that hashes are more trustworthy than signatures due to the prevalence of NSLs and backdoors. The author expresses concern about Linux distros that require downloading hundreds of components based on signatures rather than a merkle hash of the distribution at that point in time. The author suggests a distro that comes on a CD and does not download anything, criticizing the fact that many ISO images immediately download unnecessary items like fonts. In response to a proposal for a secure downloader for the Bitcoin client, the author acknowledges that it could provide forward security, but still suffers from the root CA problem. The author also notes the potential for warnings when downloading files for different projects with explicit information about adding a new trusted key. However, each trusted key is only linked to a particular project, and if the project or leader is unknown, it would be indicated.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T22:00:23.560170+00:00