This text uses language I've seen a lot in discussion around Bitcoin:
>It allows you to ... be the only person to be able to modify it (no possible external control)
Using the cryptographic algorithms believed to be the best does not make bad things impossible, for three reasons:
1. Encryption is rarely the weakest point in security. How do the authors of Namecoin know that I won't manage my keys incompetently if I use their software?
2. We don't know what unknown flaws there are in our most trusted algorithms. The worst flaws in RSA were discovered a long time after the algorithm were made public; perhaps we will find worse flaws in AES quite soon.
3. Moore's law tells us that keys have a lifetime. The Bitcoin reaction to this and other protocol problems involves something based on network majority consent. This does not sound safe to me.
I know that anyone who uses such language as "no possible external control" is either ignorant or careless. Even careless bothers me.
>It allows you to ... be the only person to be able to modify it (no possible external control)
Using the cryptographic algorithms believed to be the best does not make bad things impossible, for three reasons:
1. Encryption is rarely the weakest point in security. How do the authors of Namecoin know that I won't manage my keys incompetently if I use their software?
2. We don't know what unknown flaws there are in our most trusted algorithms. The worst flaws in RSA were discovered a long time after the algorithm were made public; perhaps we will find worse flaws in AES quite soon.
3. Moore's law tells us that keys have a lifetime. The Bitcoin reaction to this and other protocol problems involves something based on network majority consent. This does not sound safe to me.
I know that anyone who uses such language as "no possible external control" is either ignorant or careless. Even careless bothers me.