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Passwords So, from the last article or video I suppose, we learn a very important fact - we are not safe even with extremely large passwords. The reason is the level of computational sophistication available with most hackers.  When we feel happy with graphic cards and GPU driven systems because they can provide strong computational power for gaming, one thing we do not know is that there are stronger tools and even if one does not have them, a GPU is sufficient for a hacker to easily hack into a system by mere brute-force. Brute-force: The attacker continuously inputs new combinations till the correct combination is found. This is probably one of the reasons why when you put the wrong password in your mobile phone or e-mail account for a certain number of times, the system hangs or asks for something to certain your identity. So, it is important that one has a strong password with a unique combination of letters, numbers and symbols and something that is...

PASSWORDS AND BRUTE-FORCE ATTACK - 1 I won't say much today: Listen to this hilarious yet curious interview between John Oliver and Edward Snowden Now, he used the word Brute Force Attack : A topic we have to study in detail as we go on. For those interested in learning it, here is a video on youtube. You can get a pretty good impression of the algorithm. Let us meet next Week... :)

Miners and Encryption So, we come to the last segment of the introduction: Who are miners?

3 PRIVACY AND CONSENSUS A very important thing to note in a cryptocurrency environment is that the users are anonymous. Or in a more refined way of speech - are independent to create fake user names. This achieves one of the primary motives to set forth a block-chain driven system - privacy. The user is free to set a name and hence create new signatures as he pleases. Just a quick fact : Creating a new username is not necessarily creating a new account. And the latter is not just very easy to make. ( We shall be dealing with the fact that he can actually not do as he pleases later on in this segment  ) You may learn more about public and private keys and signatures from the following portals: Comodo.com: Keys GeekForGeeks Medium : Digital Signatures We shall discuss Signatures when we shall learn how transactions occur. At the moment, we are just trying to build a blockchain ecosystem fit for monetary transactions. Well, a very important question that was lef...

2  Banking, Double Spending and a need for Cryptocurrency Banking Sector How do you think the modern banking sector works? The modern banking industry started about 700 years ago in the city-state of Venice. Many merchant lineages including the famous Medici family became extremely rich and powerful thanks to the industry.  Though Banking has undergone radical transformations in the last century, the fundamental principle remains the same - the customer pays some money for an institution to hold, protect and then give back a certain interest on a larger sum that the customer deposits.  This, however, means that the bank holds a larger power over deciding the rules of the transaction thanks to its bargaining capacity in the transaction. This phenomenon is called the centralisation of authority.  Centralisation is  the concentration of control of an activity or organization under a single authority. Banks naturally have a lot of employe...

1 A student's Overview to Blockchain and Cryptocurrency PART 1: An Introduction So, I happened to have pickup this subject called Blockchain and cryptocurrency in my college electives and though I clearly had a brief idea of the concept earlier, a visit to a Bitcoin market cap website just blew my mind. So, here is the website - Bitcoin MarketCap  and here is a picture I would like to share showing the price variation of bitcoins over the years. Right from a price of about 65$ a piece (though the word 'piece' seems incorrect) to peaking to about $20k per piece and when I checked it, the prices were about $7k a bitcoin. There was back in 2015 if I'm not incorrect, a sudden craze for bitcoins. The prices no doubt skyrocketed due to the very same reason. Now, the prices have fallen to less than half of what the zenith of glory bitcoins had seen, the craze continues, however. There are millions of bitcoins in circulation - just like a generic fiat...