Author: Troy Benjegerdes 2014-01-03 17:38:17
Published on: 2014-01-03T17:38:17+00:00
In a discussion between Drak and Troy Benjegerdes, Drak claims that the NSA can alter Bitcoin downloads on the fly and encryption is the only cure. However, Troy counters that verifying hashes is the solution, suggesting to put the hash of the source tar.gz and the binaries in the blockchain. Drak points out that cryptography needs to work automatically to be truly effective. He doubts that ordinary users like his grandma will manually check the hash of a download. Troy suggests that 'make' should check the hash, the binary should check its own hash, and the operating system should check the hash. Then, Troy asks Drak if he would pay $50 more for a tablet with free software that protects users' interests rather than selling their data to Google/Apple/Microsoft. Troy proposes using existing infrastructure in Android to allow only integrity-verified software to be installed from public keys downloaded from the blockchain. In response, Drak explains that he is working towards building hardware whose entire design specifications, including the pre-installed cryptographic currency wallet(s), are signed and part of the Debian archive. However, he needs people to educate their grandmas on why this hardware costs more than hardware that monetizes eyeballs and sells private information to the highest bidder.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T22:00:44.689691+00:00