March 19, 2024

Archives for July 2015

Analyzing the 2013 Bitcoin fork: centralized decision-making saved the day

On March 11, 2013, Bitcoin experienced a technical crisis. Versions 0.7 and 0.8 of the software diverged from each other in behavior due to a bug, causing the block chain to “fork” into two. Considering how catastrophic a hard fork can be, the crisis was resolved quickly with remarkably little damage owing to the exemplary […]

Too many SSNs floating around

In terms of impact, the OPM data breach involving security clearance information is almost certainly the most severe data breach in American history. The media has focused too much on social security numbers in its reporting, but is slowly starting to understand the bigger issues for anyone who has a clearance, or is a relative […]