dcoder.nz

Bitcoin - Crypto Currencies Facts and Thoughts

Fri, 22 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +1300

Crypto currencies are the talk of the century. Value and any other transactions can occur and be validated on a network.

Bitcoin - Crypto Currencies & Blockchain Facts and Thoughts

As a controversial topic, I thought I would give my two cents or should I say: My two Satoshis on the topic. My background is in Computer Science, Distributed Systems, Mathematics such as Discrete Mathematics, yes, Cryptography as well as Information Systems like Middleware and databases. I have read the white paper on Bitcoin and also the book “Mastering Bitcoin” by Andreas M. Antonopoulos, who also spent most of his life learning about cryptography, networks such as Distributed Systems, Mathematics and yes, Crypto Currencies. I can say that I am an A student in Information Systems Security and Discrete Mathematics and all of the above and have come from a script kiddy background to what I believe is a white hat hacker now. I actually like to think of me as a gray hat hacker, because, common, who is only good all the time ;-). I do not claim to understand all the details of even Bitcoin or other Crypto Currencies. It is a full-time job. However, I believe that I have a firm grasp on logic, mathematics, cryptography and what blockchain technology is and how it works. I am not a financial expert, but also believe I have a grasp on the topic.

Everyone, in a nutshell, knows what Bitcoin is. It is the first Crypto Currency. It is best understood and most popular. It has almost 50% of the Crypto market share. It is an open source project supported by almost 500 contributors. Note that the Linux Kernel is the biggest, most supported software (not only Open Source!) project that has ever existed. It has about 14,000 contributors. So, Bitcoin has developer support of about 3.6% of the biggest software project mankind has and probably will see. That is huge!

It has parameters that are melded into the protocol and cannot be changed, because they are melded into the first block. Like the 21 million limit on coins. Its parameters are based on game theory by the famous mathematician John Nash, who won the nobel prize for his efforts. The mathematics and cryptography its security is based on is what underlies all modern cryptography used by all banks, national security agencies and everything that we believe in is secure. The hashing algorithms used are the most secure that mankind has come up with so far plus the blockchain, the data structure that revolutionises everything that involves transactions of any sort make the foundation, that hundreds if not thousands of security experts confirmed to be secure. Furthermore, Bitcoin itself has not been hacked for almost 9 years now. If there was an attack vector, it probably would have been found already. Of course there is the 51% attack, but that is well known and possible in any consensus protocol.

However, there is, currently more than ever, a weakness of Bitcoin. The amount of transactions per seconds is far lower than that of databases or is acceptable for real world use by everyone. Databases are simple compared to blockchain technology, which is also, why databases are and always will be hackable or at least compromisable by their creators or controllers.

Other crypto systems promise to solve the scalability problems. However, it seems to have almost gone unnoticed, that Bitcoin has a solution for this as well called the Lightning Network and Segwit. Now these are not just buzzwords, they are valid technologies and promise to solve the scalability problems. Lightning has recently been tested and confirmed working on the blockchain. A Crypto Currency will never scale as easily as a database, but that is not the point of crypto.

A database can never be secured from its system admins and developers maintaining it. Credit card details, bank accounts, all this type of information is stored by multiple parties. Every single online store you used has the ability to store and retrieve the information you entered. And if you haven’t noticed, your credit card details don’t change, at least for a few years. Bitcoins on the other hand change with every transaction that is ever made. In fact, the Bitcoins you own are not even in your wallet. Your wallet just contains private keys to sign the transactions you make and your received funds can only be spent with your private keys.

Comments on the recent exit of one of the founders of Bitcoin.com:

Bitcoin.com is NOT Bitcoin! It is a company invested in Bitcoin.

A founder of a company, legitimately, also the founder of Bitcoin.com is after returning a profit of whatever it is that is most valuable to them. It is still hard to spend Bitcoin on anything one might want. Bitcoin is nowhere near everywhere accepted. And there is currently this transactions per second limit which combined with demand, drives the transaction costs up. As a founder of Bitcoin.com (not Bitcoin!), he understands that something needs to happen. And since he does not seem to know an algorithm to fix Bitcoin Core, he bailed out. This could have had the following reasons:

He wants the best for Bitcoin, so wants to stop more people getting into Bitcoin so quickly potentially driving Bitcoin exchange to a halt and stopping the whole thing while it’s being repaired.
He understands his power and thought: “I can dump my Bitcoin, the price will fall rapidly when the news gets out and then I can get some cash, get rich and buy back the same amount of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash or whatever crypto currency I fancy at the moment and basically double my money”.
He is very uncertain about Bitcoin’s future, because many are and saw an opportunity to get out rich.

After all, he is a young human being, I believe only 22 years old if I read correctly and driven by many things.

Hashgraph and other emerging technologies

Bitcoin or other blockchain technologies are still in their infancy and are already being challenged by other technologies. Hashgraph is the most recent one I have heard of. While Hashgraph is intriguing and I believe works from what I understand, Hashgraph has a proprietary license which really only makes it viable for B2B (Business to Business) such as banks. Something else I found as a weakness was that the main website, hashgraph.com had a mixed content warning, at least on my machine when I read it. A company that develops a security algorithm that has not proper SSL (HTTPS) support on their website and promotes its algorithm as a proprietary SECURITY! technology seems a bit dodgy to me.

However, this may change in the future or other people, knowing the Hashgraph algorithm now, can come up with something new and make that completely free and Open Source. Heck, the ideas of Hashgraph could contribute to Bitcoin and other Crypto Currencies to fix the problems they have such as scalability. I am 99% sure that there will be a solution to the scaling problem of Bitcoin and that Bitcoin can be fixed in one form or another. Maybe a fork will happen again. But remember, the Bitcoin one buys now will be available on the fork to you, which essentially doubles your money, however much value it then has. Note that for this to be the case you absolutely need to control your own private keys! Bitcoin Cash is a fork of Bitcoin Core and the people who had Bitcoin before the fork earned the same amount of Bitcoin Cash that they had in Bitcoin Core. I know, this is confusing. So many currencies, all springing out of nowhere with no real value attached to them other than people believing in them and mathematicians telling us that they are proven to validate reliably? Sounds like a scam, but I am certain it is not. Just out of interest, I have invested some time in Bitcoin, reading the white paper back in 2010. I then had doubts that this may work, at the time mainly because of the dependency on a secure hash function and MD5 and other hash functions have been found to be insecure. However, Bitcoin and other cryptos use multiple hashes that are believed to be secure now and are used in SSL and TLS certificates. If the hash functions are the security problem, we have far bigger problems than Bitcoin going bust. When I read the white paper the first time, as I said, I did not believe this would work. Bitcoin had only been around for a year then and I didn’t dare to invest in something that I cannot be certain works. I still cannot be 100% there won’t be a fundamental flaw stopping the whole system. However, time has proven that it does indeed work. Millions of people believe in the blcokchain technology underlying Bitcoin not only because of pure faith, but because it has proven itself over time and in mathematical algorithms. It has had an extensive test of time and the problems with it are engineering problems that imho will be solved.

Cost

When I first heard about Bitcoin and blockchain I thought: “OMG, think of all this electricity that is wasted!”. I am an environmentalist and work for an environmental organisation to do my part in saving the planet from climate change and trying to at least postpone the certain doom of our species, at least on this planet.

This is one of the major arguments of an article I read just recently. The person who wrote the article clearly does not understand the potential that blockchain has unleashed like I did when I first heard about it. Think of all the effort of mankind that goes into validating truths and transactions! Not only human time, but precious resources such as paper, water and electricity are consumed in the process. I don’t need to come to you with numbers, because, as we all know, people pull statistics from everywhere to make a point. I believe in the logic that we can attain by pure reasoning is much more valid than even mathematics that are proven that we do not understand.

The point is that by pure reasoning we can understand that much more energy and time will go into validating contracts and money transactions than any blockchain can use in the same time it validates those transactions. I bought a house recently and the amount of paper work and human time involved was outrages. Imagine all this could happen with smart contracts and value transactions that self-execute and take care of all this boring stuff while being more reliable, more secure and letting people get on with life. Sure there still have to be a seller and buyer and they have to agree on something, but the whole process could be so much easier.

Conclusions & thoughts

None of this demotes blockchain technologies or even Bitcoin. The things that threaten blockchain and therefore all alt coins as well, is scalability. Bitcoin Cash just has a bigger block size, which just postpones the problem for example.

If the scalability problem is solved, which I strongly believe is possible, the blockchain technologies that adapt it will be the winners. Maybe the solution can be applied to all alt coins including Bitcoin. Maybe there just needs to be a hard fork. However it will play out, I strongly believe that Bitcoin Core is not flawed enough to fail or even devalue quickly like a bubble. It is based on mathematics and strong computer security. It has trust of many people and has grown into an economy of its own. It has been working for 9 years, hasn’t been hacked or crashed. A lot of work has gone into it. A lot of human effort and time as well as machine time. Hardware has been created specifically to mine blockchain coins and technologies. Smart people are invested in Bitcoin related technologies. Bitcoin, blockchain or in its most basic sense Distributed Consensus Algorithms are not going away because of some news in the media. After all, media can be made up, but mathematics is ingrained in nature and cannot be put away as bull shit.

This is why I believe in Crypto Currencies or more precisely blockchain in the long term and I believe Bitcoin Core or at least future forks are not stoppable now and will at least retain or more likely increase massively in value.

If people spent every dollar they spend on lotto on a crypto currency, their chances of winning, by my estimates, are at least 1 million times higher.

Now or in a few days when it’s at its lowest, is a good time to invest btw. Yet another media craze is happening right now, people who don’t understand Bitcoin will plunge either way of what they hear. ;-)

Computer Science - What it really is?!

Sat, 24 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +1200

Computer Science - The Art of Moving Bits What do we do all day as programmers? Is it worth the effort? Does it mean anything?

Computer Science - What it really is?!

Computer Science is the art of computing. But what is it really, underneath all the fancy theory and how to do things so we can achieve some kind of information transformation?

Computer science is fun. It challenges the underlying theories of how things work. The universe, maybe? Logic and mathematics are fundamental building blocks on how to transform data from one format to the other. Data is just a number or a series of numbers, which essentially form another larger number. What does it really mean though? We basically just push bits around this glorified machine called the computer. We basically just copy data from A to B and sometimes do an operation on it. Basically, we are just performing additions or even more primitavely, we perform logical operations that can be boiled down to 2 operations (see deMorgan).

But we think it can change the world. But can it? I like to think it can. The universe is ruled by the rules of logic, at least as far as we know. If science is right, and it sure looks like it is, the universe is made up of some kind of unit, lets call it atoms, electrons and/or protons.

The physical laws follow logical patterns and results gained from calculators and ultimately computers can model our world in a way that not even our brain can keep up with. Models, even though they are pure simplifications of the real world, could predict global warming, make our traffic more or less work and help us optimise our lives and make them simpler in any way imaginable. It is undeniable that information technology has transformed our lives in ways we couldn’t even imagine just a few years back. We now have satellites, orbiting the earth, the Internet, giving us access to a vast amount of information about our world and a lot of other technology that (supposedly) eases our lives. We are too intelligent for our own good really. We know what is happening in the world and sometimes get depressed thinking about all those people living a much worse life than ours as well as people who live a better one.

What is it good for? Well, I like to think that computer science can help us lead a happier life, appreciating what we have. We have a functioning mind for starters. That is already a great privilege. Computer Science is not about how to make the next million $$ idea work, it is about comprehending the world just that little bit more, how things work, why things work. For me, computer science has given me purpouse. In a world where everything seems like it has been discovered, computer science gives one the notion that maybe, just maybe, we don’t know everything yet. In fact, I don’t think everything is discoverable. Mathematicians have stated that not even most problems can be solved. Most problems, in theory, have no solution, at least not computable in a feasible amount of time.

I could dabble on for more, but I just want to make you think of the bare bones of our existence.

To me, life is about achieving real happiness. To me, happiness comes from having purpouse in your life, which seems so hard to achieve with minds that have existed already, that are much stronger, smarter or better than mine. However, I can make a positive difference in this world by just treating people in a good way and doing something that I enjoy. I enjoy working with computers, because I feel there is enough bullshit in the world and logic, mathematics and deductively computer science minimise the amount of bs.

So, I will close with: I love learning new things about computers and solving real problems with them, because it makes me feel special. Everyone should feel special. So, consider going on youtube or any other website and learning about this very creative, logical and beautiful subject called

COMPUTER SCIENCE.

All the best, Tim

PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +1300

Hier Videos über Objekt-Orientierte-Programmierung mit PHP 5. PHP oder PHP Hypertext Pre-processor ist eine Programmiersprache für Hacker von Hackern optimiert fuer Web-Entwicklung.

PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

Slides: PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

PHP ist vielleicht nicht die sauberste und beste Programmiersprache. Aber es ist auf jeden Fall eine, die es wert ist einen zweiten Blick drauf zu werfen.

PHP hat echte OOP und ist eine Scriptsprache, die schnelle Entwicklung erlaubt. Vielleicht hast Du ja Zeit, diese Einfuehrung anzusehen.

PHP5 - Funktionen

Funktionen sind ein wichtiges Konzept in, soweit ich weiß, jeder Programmiersprache. Es ist auf jeden Fall hilfreich, wenn nicht absolut notwendig, Funktionen vom Prinzip her zu verstehen. Ohne sie kann man nicht seht weit kommen.

Search Engine Optimization
Google - Duckduckgo - Bing

Wed, 03 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +1300

If you are looking for how to increase your websites online visibility and get it up on the organic results, you found some valuable tips.

Website Search Engine Optimization

This post aims to get up high on Google by using its own tips. Just study the page itself and if you found this page on Google, Duckduckgo, Microsoft Bing or another major search engine, chances are that the tips here really work.

In a way this is a meta search engine meta post.

Get up on Google, Bing, Duckduckgo and other Search Engines

If you want to get your website up on Google or other search engines like Microsoft Bing or even Duckduckgo, you may have a long road ahead of you. Use these definite tips to ease the ride.

Now that many people have figured out the organic search is one of the most important things for your web site, it is not a simple copy/paste job any more. You need to invest quite some time, effort and thought into the process.

Howto: 15 Tips On Getting Up On Search Engines

Follow guides that are already first in the very search results.
Make sure you get a high Google back link count.
Ensure good spelling and grammar use, spell check your web site.
Choose the right key words.
Be to the point and don’t waste your readers’ time with irrelevant information.
Dedicate each page carefully to its most important theme.
Don’t waste your time with too much meta information in the <head/> section.
Post on forums and other websites about the topic that is on your website ensuring a link is posted back to your site.
Keep posting new and relevant content on your website.
Have a fast loading website.
Enable HTTPS/SSL to make your site secure and make it impossible for routers to inject unwanted content such as 3rd party advertisement.
Link to other relevant websites on the topic (search engine optimization).
Have a mobile friendly site which follows mobile usability guidelines.
Make links have a relevant content to what they actually are like you see in this page.
Hire someone to do the job: I happen to offer professional website development services.

More Information on SEO - Search Engine Optimization

If you want more detail on the above, read this section:

This is a self-improving article which will need some work over the coming months if not years and will need an evolution-like development. So, watch this space. This website has an RSS Feed, so please subscribe. A nice reader is the Feedly RSS Reader.

Announcing Student Project Support

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +1200

Are you a student looking for a company to do a class room project involving Information Technology? If the answer is yes, read on!

dcoder.nz is now supporting students through their studies with student projects. You will need to provide a CV and cover letter to prove your language proficiency and that you want to work with us. This is necessary because we cannot take on everyone and need to ensure we are not wasting our time. However, if you are in your last year of study and think you’ve got what it takes to contribute to a successful project, you are welcome and encouraged to apply. If you’ve made it this far, you probably have the skills and perseverance to go on.

You can suggest your own project or we can probably provide you with an idea that is doable within your 450 hour or similar time-frame. We have mentored student projects before and are confident that we can guide you through a successful project, that is interesting and doable.

Let it be an Android application, a web development project or a new technology to develop, we can probably help you. So, talk to us.

Conditions are that the project is with a university or similar education institution like Massey University or UCOL. The other condition is it is in Palmerston North, close or at least within New Zealand. If not within Palmerston North, we require an informal meeting to take place and some proof of identity and willingness to sign a contract which may be provided by the educational institution.

Announcing Silverstripe Support

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +1200

We are dedicated to support SilverStripe, the relatively new and very well designed Content Management System. We can develop your sites, your web apps and mobile sites with this great piece of technology. It supports easy extensibility and has great template support. Furthermore, it is a New Zealand made and Free and Open Source Software.

It is written in PHP and has a lot of templates and modules out of the box which are very easy to extend and manipulate. The framework is well-designed and it has a large community of developers and users.

Launch your website or application with us and you can take advantage of competitive, rapid web development with a website or application that you can update yourself. You will only need us to develop new features and extensions and occasionally for support.

Watch @geekdenz on SilverStripe.org for proof of work and competency. You can ask questions directly there and if you need more support you can get it directly at dcoder.nz by getting in touch.

Announcing Crypto Currency Support

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +1200

Crypto Currency is an uprising technology for payment. It is still in its infancy and by some regarded as a ponzi scheme. However, I read the paper on Bitcoin and it makes a lot of sense. In fact, I believe it could potentially be better than the “real” money we currently use because of its mathematical properties.

So, even though it is not “real” money, I’ve decided to accept it as a payment option in exchange for services, at least for a while. As a promotion, I will accept a 20% discount if using Bitcoin.

Other Crypto Currency could also be accepted, but I would need to check its validity first.

You can view the real value of, for example, Bitcoin here.

So, that means one can exchange it for real money. However, transaction costs are a lot lower and it is much more convenient over great distances.

20% off means 80% of the normal price at an agreed time. This could be time of invoice or potentially earlier to provide a fair game.

Announcing Android Development

Sat, 19 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +1200

We’re proudly announcing Android Development to be a focus from now into the future. Android is growing fast and we’re committed to embracing this fast growth by specialising on this platform.

There are also other platforms for mobile, such as HTML5 Cordova and of course iOS (iPhone, iPad, …). However, Android is an open platform. The source code is freely available and is Open Sourced. Also, Android is the fastest growing mobile platform and at its core is the Linux OS. Another strong reason for this decision is that Android Natively supports Java and we’ve been specialising in Java Development for years. Additionally, Android support XML and a styling language similar to CSS which is why our web development background helps a lot. Learning Android proves to be fast an easy, so we can easily be productive quickly.

Let us help you grow in this exciting area by deciding to develop your app with us. We look forward to your feedback and working with you.

Kind regards, The Android Team

Announcing Web Development

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +1200

We’re proudly announcing Web Development to be the main focus of this company. The web is a fast growing platform that is accessible from anywhere. Mobile, the desktop, your TV and any device that can display web pages like google.com.

To be a successful business going forward, you need a website if not a sophisticated web applications to meet your customer needs. We specialise in web development and can deliver fast, beautiful and useful web pages and applications. Whether you need a simple, static web page, a simple blog with semi-static pages that you want us to update for you or a fully content managed website that you can update yourself with an easy to use, productive back end and CMS, we can develop a solution for you that works best.

For as little as NZ$1500 we can develop a static web page for you that we can then update for you for only $50 per blog post and $200 per new page design to fit into this template.

A full-featured CMS Website development with custom development and/or a simple or sophisticated shopping cart for your online shop can be developed for as little as NZ$4000. Talk to us and you can find out what we can do within your budget.

Let us help you grow in this exciting area by deciding to make your app or website with us. We look forward to your feedback and working with you.

Kind regards, The Web Team

Digital Education - Learning Programming

Sat, 12 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +1200

Learning how to program is something that is very scary for most people. It is still a rare skill and people get good, fun and well paid jobs in this industry. Therefore dcoder is launching a digital education programme.

Programming is a skill that will be saught after for years to come. Learn to learn. Learn to program. Learn to like learning and consult dcoder for one-on-one programming lessons. Dcoder will adapt to your skill level, your learning pace and make most efficient use of your time.

This is an offering of a course to learn programming in your language of choice given that I know the language. My main programming languages are Java, JavaScript, C(++), Python, PHP and now Dart. I believe strongly, that you can easily learn a new language if you know one. So, make a choice and learn your first programming language.

Programming is fun. You can do a lot of things with this skill. You can impress your friends and find well-paid and fun jobs with this skill.

So, without further ado. I am offering lessons for an astonishing reasonable price:

NZ$50 for a one-on-one 1 hour lesson

If you find peers to join you, I will teach

2 people for NZ$40 per hour each

3 people for NZ$30 per hour each

4 people for NZ$25 per hour each

I look forward to teaching or helping you learn this future-proof and fun skill.

All the best, Tim-Hinnerk Heuer

dcoder.nz

Bitcoin - Crypto Currencies Facts and Thoughts

Bitcoin - Crypto Currencies & Blockchain Facts and Thoughts

Comments on the recent exit of one of the founders of Bitcoin.com:

Hashgraph and other emerging technologies

Cost

Conclusions & thoughts

Computer Science - What it really is?!

Computer Science - What it really is?!

PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

PHP5 - Funktionen

Search Engine OptimizationGoogle - Duckduckgo - Bing

Website Search Engine Optimization

Get up on Google, Bing, Duckduckgo and other Search Engines

Howto: 15 Tips On Getting Up On Search Engines

More Information on SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Announcing Student Project Support

Announcing Silverstripe Support

Announcing Crypto Currency Support

Announcing Android Development

Announcing Web Development

Digital Education - Learning Programming

Search Engine Optimization
Google - Duckduckgo - Bing