Technology

Cryptocurrencies: a weird agglomerate of fascinating technology built by brilliant engineers; a whole new and potentially important form of economics; … and hype-machine puffed-up crazy-talk nonsense. So, as you might expect, they also combine state-of-the art resilient engineering and comical clown-car so-called security. Yes, thatright — I want to talk about IOTA, and (to an extent) Bitcoin Cash.

Modern security practices include: an understanding of and commitment to responsible disclosure; making yourself available and accessible to third-party security researchers; offering bug bounties; fuzzing your code; etcetera. They also include valuable truisms such as &don&t roll your own crypto.& Here thatcrypto as in cryptography, and it means, always always always use tried and time-tested cryptographic algorithms and implementations. Do not try to build your own from scratch. You will regret it.

IOTA, currently the worldtenth most valuable cryptocurrency, took an … assertively contrarian stance regarding this dictum. They didn&t just roll their own crypto, they rolled their own fundamental units, deciding that binary wasn&t good enough by half, and that trinary was where itat, that their trits and trytes were so much better than bits and bytes.

I confess part of me has a grudging respect for the surreality of this kind of whackadoodle performance art. Alas, this half-admiration doesn&t extend to the recent saga in which a) they rolled their own crypto; b) MIT and BU researchers found a flaw in it; c) IOTA first said that the flaw was intentional, and then, apparently, that it was created by an imperfect AI (!); d) a spectacular war of words (between those parties and several others) erupted. Then, yesterday, Neha Narula, the director of MITDigital Currency Initiative, presented last yearwork in a talk at Black Hat — and even though that work stemmed from last year …

I interviewed Narula this morning and she said, still amazed, that it actually seemed to her as if IOTA thought her talk yesterday would reveal a new, previously undisclosed vulnerability. Their fundamental misunderstanding of how software security works, and what responsible disclosure means, is staggering.

You may well think IOTA is such an extremely ridiculous project that itunfair to use it as an example. But if so, bear in mind that cryptocurrencies remain a very weird field, and many people who have put a lot of money into them are unable to distinguish ridiculous projects from serious ones. A couple of days ago I visited Las Vegas&cryptocurrency nightclub,& all too appropriately called MORE; the general idea is that people can both invest in MoreCoin (yes, really) and spend it on better access / parties at Vegas and similar destinations. Whether you think this is a valid concept or a crazy get-rich-quick scheme, itan example of how cryptocurrencies are increasingly aimed at the unsophisticated public. To its intended audience, therenot much difference between MoreCoin and Bitcoin; any technical ludicrousness is no bar to success.

But if you want to talk about something more serious and higher-profile, fine; lettalk about Narulamost recent post, this one describing and regarding a bug in Bitcoin Cash, one of the very few currencies traded on Coinbase. Some months ago, a developer, Cory Fields, discovered that the hard fork which birthed Bitcoin Cash included some refactoring of Bitcoinconsensus code … such that a malicious block could be crafted which would split Bitcoin Cash into two separate blockchains.

This would be very bad, would almost certainly have drastically diminished Bitcoin Cashvalue, and could conceivably be used for a double-spend attack; meaning, given Bitcoin Cashvalue and liquidity, it was a bug which could conceivably have been used to generate many millions of dollars in cold hard cash. Fortunately Fields is an admirable fellow and decided to do the right thing.

But … how Who to contact The people with commit rights to the Bitcoin Cash repo, he supposed; but none of them had provided secure methods of public contact. This was information that could be used to bilk many millions of dollars, it couldn&t be emailed in plaintext — and whatmore, if somebody else discovered the bug but this Core developer was the only one known to have discovered it, he would be painting a big target on his back. How can you perform responsible disclosure when thereno outlet to disclose to

In the end, Fields found a way. (A very complicated way.) And the bug has been fixed. But the difficulties he had highlights the fact that, as cryptocurrencies mature, their security policies and procedures need to mature along with them. Kudos to those who are already well along this path, such as Ethereum, EOS and Tezos; and brickbats to those who make it hard to disclose vulnerabilities, and/or those who respond with weaponized ignorance.

Last year I had a good time comparing SonyDPT-RP1 with the home-grown reMarkable. They both had their strengths and weaknesses, and one of the Sony was that the thing was just plain big. They&ve remedied that with a much smaller sibling, the DPT-CP1, and itjust as useful as I expected. Which is to say: in a very specific way.

Sonye-paper tablets are single-minded little gadgets: all they do is let you read and lightly mark up PDFs. If that sounds a mite too limited to you, you&re not the target demographic. But lots of people — including me — have to wade through tons of PDFs and ita pain to do so on a desktop or laptop. Who wants to read AmazonAntitrust Paradox by hitting the down arrow 500 times

For legal documents and scientific journal articles, which I read a lot of, a big e-paper tablet is fantastic. But the truth is that the RP1, with its 13.3″ screen, was simply too big to carry around most of the time. The device is quite light, but took up too much space. So I was excited to check out the CP1, which really is just a smaller version of the same thing.

To be honest, therenot much I can add to my original review of the RP1: it handles PDFs easily, and now with improved page jumping and tagging, iteasier to navigate them. And using the stylus, you can make some limited markup — but don&t try to do much more than mark a passage with an &OK& or a little star (one of several symbols the device recognizes and tracks the location of).

Itincredibly light and thin, and feels flexible and durable as well — not a fragile device at all. Its design is understated and functional.

[gallery ids="1687652,1687655,1687656,1687657,1687653,1687654"]

Writing isn&t the Sony tablets& strong suit — that would be the reMarkableterritory. While looping out a circle or striking through a passage is just fine, handwritten notes are a pain. The resolution, accuracy and latency of the writing implement are as far as I can tell exactly as they were on the larger Sony tablet, which makes sense — the CP1 basically is a cutout of the same display and guts.

PDFs display nicely, and the grid pattern on the screen isn&t noticeable for the most part. Contrast isn&t as good as the latest Kindles or Kobos (shots in the gallery above aren&t really flattering, since they&re so close up, but you get the idea), but itmore than adequate and it beats reading a big PDF on a small screen like those on your laptopLCD. Battery life is excellent — it&ll go through hundreds of pages on a charge.

A new mobile app supposedly makes transferring documents to the CP1 easy, but in reality I never found a reason to use it. I so rarely download PDFs — the only format the tablet reads — on my phone or tablet that it just didn&t make sense for me. Perhaps I could swap a few over that are already on my iPad, but it just didn&t strike me as particularly practical except perhaps in a few situations where my computer isn&t available. But thatjust me — people who work more from their phones might find this much more useful.

Mainly I just enjoyed how light and simple the thing is. Therealmost no menu system to speak of and the few functions you can do (zooming in and such) are totally straightforward. Whenever I got a big document, like todayFCC OIG report, or a set of upcoming scientific papers, my first thought was, &I&ll stick these on the Sony and read them on the couch.&

Although I value its simplicity, it really could use a bit more functionality. A note-taking app that works with a Bluetooth keyboard, for instance, or synchronizing with your Simplenote or Pocket account. The reMarkable is still limited as well, but its excellent stylus (suitable for sketching) and cloud service help justify the price.

I have to send this thing back now, which is a shame because itdefinitely a handy device. Of course, the $600 price tag makes it rather a niche one as well — but perhaps itthe kind of thing that fills out the budget of an IT upgrade or grant proposal.

Adam Pittenger knows that moving is tough — after all, he said hemoved eight times in the past seven years.

Pittenger said that there are several reasons why the process can be stressful, like the fact that most people aren&t experts on moving, since they don&t do it as often as him (seriously, eight times is crazy). Plus, therejust an enormous amount of planning and coordination required, whether ithiring movers, buying packing materials or putting your things into storage.

So Pittenger decided to make the whole process a lot easier by foundingMoved. Moving, he said, &doesn&t have to be that stressful,& because with Moved, you get &a personal assistant coordinating all the aspects of your move.&

Moved is announcing that itraised $3.2 million in seed funding from LoweVentures (the early-stage investment arm of the home improvement giant), FJ Labs, AngelPad, Real Estate Technology Ventures and others.

To sign up for Moved, you fill out a questionnaire about where you&re moving to and from, and what kinds of services you need. Moved (available via desktop web or mobile app) will then reach out to movers and provide you with multiple quotes from which you can choose.

And while, as Pittenger put it, &the immediate thing you need to do is book the movers,& Moved offers a broader range of services, like ordering packing supplies, helping you donate stuff you don&t need anymore, finding a storage unit, updating your address, finding painters and more.

Moving can also be expensive, so the company hasannounced a partnership with Affirm, where Affirmfinancing will allow you to break up the moving costs into monthly payments.

To be clear, Moved isn&t doing the moving itself — instead, itbasically connecting you to a marketplace of movers and other service providers. Pittenger said the company is &very strict about the suppliers and the vendors& and will remove them if customers aren&t happy with their experience.

Moved is managing all of this through a real, human assistant who can help you figure out what you need, handle the scheduling and serve as a &consumer advocate& who ensures that you&re not getting ripped off.

Pittenger said the service is free for consumers, with a fee charged to vendors at the time of booking. And itavailable throughout the United States.