Dark Side of the Net Lecture 3 Bitcoin

MC3003
Dark Side of the Net
Lecture 3
Bitcoin

Introduction
• On Friday 12th May 2017:
• NHS,
• FedEx,
• Deuthche Bahn - German rail
company
• Telefonica – Spanish telecoms
giant and mobile phone
manufacturer
• and many other companies and
organisations in 150 countries
around the world
• were subjected to a massive
cyber-attack.

• Staff logging onto their PCs go the following
message.
• The attack was conducted using the
‘WannaCry’ ransomware cryptoworm.
• The software searched for computers that were
running an older version of Windows that had
not had a security patch applied.
• When the worm found such a computer it
installed a piece of software called
‘EternalBlue’ (which is thought to have been
developed by the US National Security Agency
and was itself stolen in a hacking attack on the
NSA).
• This software then permitted the installation of
the WannaCry ransomware which then
encrypted the data on the computer and could
only be unlocked though the payment of the
$300.
• They asked for payments in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin
• Bitcoin itself is not part of the dark net but it does make a possible
transactions that appeal to those on the Dark net.
• In this lecture we are going to look at bitcoin (and other crypto
currencies)
• We will:
• Consider the nature and history of money;
• Examine how Bitcoin is different from contemporary systems of money;
• Look at the mechanics of bitcoin (especially the idea of the blockchain);
• Think about how bitcoin might change things – what is the impact of bitcoin
and other block chain systems.

Activity
• What is Money?
• In groups of 2-3 discuss what is
money, how can we define it?
• Can our idea of money be
informed by our beliefs - political
/ social or even spiritual
perspective?
I pulled a $10 bill out of my
wallet and held it in my hand. It
was just paper, but it didn’t feel
like ordinary paper. That $10 bill
was invested with a powerful
energy. Was the paper itself
energy, or was it the way I
thought about the paper that
endowed it with energy? Is
money energy directed by our
thoughts about it? Quantum
physicists have begun to
understand that human
attention focused on particles of
energy can influence and change
the nature of that energy.
Thought directs energy and
energy follows thought.
A wonderful truth began to dawn
on me. If money is energy and
thought directs energy, we must
be able to consciously direct the
flow of money/energy in our
lives. The practical ramifications
of money responding to our
thoughts were fantastic.
Self Help
Shit
Making interest in money somehow
legitimate by religious ideas. Justifying a
neoliberal approach with new age self
centred religion.

Alternate approaches…
• Within economics money is the liquid form of wealth and ‘wealth’ is
used to describe all things that have value.
• Money is an exchangeable form of wealth.
• For Marxists it is similar but derives from the labour process; money
is a way in which labour can be captured from the production process
and stored to be deployed at a later time – it is reserve labour.
• In the form of money such reserve labour can be stored and traded
for other reserve labour.
• The profit accrued from the production process – the surplus value – can be
redeployed to obtain other forms of surplus value in the form of other
employees labour.

A brief history of money – Barter, account and
debt.
• People have been trading items since prehistory.
• We basically understand money to have emerged out of:
• Barter systems – direct exchange of goods – money helps to facilitate systems of
exchange.
• Account systems – who owes what to who – organising debts and obligations.
• Things were used to exchange – goods and lives stock and valuables.
• Graber argues that money emerged as a way of recognising debt between
people who do not trust each other enough.
• People exchanged labour – one goes first so there is a debt.
• When they do not know each other they have to have some means of ensuring that
the debt will be paid so it is ‘instantiated’ in a physical form.
• Money begins as the transferable representation of wealth so we don’t
have to trust the person we are transacting with..

Activity
• Open you wallets / purses / money bags and take out a note or coin.
• First, a few minutes consider:
• What it is made of.
• What would be involved in making it?
• How difficult would it be to make?
• Then consider:
• Why is it worth what it is worth?
• What makes it worth something?
• If you tried to make money and it wasn’t perfect, would it be worth anything?
• If yes would it be worth half the value if it was half as good?
• If it wouldn’t be worth anything, why not?

First coins
• Initially money was actually made of
precious metals, gold, silver, electrum,
bronze and iron.
• Also pre coin lumps of stone were
exchanged – these were used in weighing
goods for sale.
• Such tokens of exchange were not issued
by a central authority and cannot
technically, at least be considered coins.
• The first large circulation coin (we know
of) is the Lydian Electrum Trite or ‘Lydian
Lion’ which was minted in the reign of
King Alyattes (610-600 BC.) in the city of
Sardis, Lydia in Asia Minor which lies in
contemporary Turkey.
• There were coins slightly earlier but not
many ere made.

Coin value
• Coins and indeed notes achieved their value not just from the value of the
materials used to make them (the Lydian Lion was made from electrum, an
alloy of gold and silver).
• They also achieve value because of what they represent which is an
agreement that the coin or note is worth so much –
• we concur that the coin or note is valuable – even though its actual value in raw
materials may be negligible.
• This value is in part achieved as the coin or note is produced by a
centralised authority in which we have faith and which will police the
exchange of the currency for services, will accept the currency itself in as
tax and will ensure the coin is not adulterated – is pure what ever metal it
is supposed to be.

From precious metals to notes
• Initial money was made of the precious
metal.
• By the 12th century the idea of
‘certificates of deposit’ - pieces of
paper that were linked to deposits in
trusted merchants stores spread from
China to Europe.
• These evolved into notes being issued
by a central authority who would pay
the gold over upon presentation of the
note.
• Coins soon changed to becoming
promissory rather than containing
actual gold and silver.
• Though it is still possible to buy gold coins
and there is a trade in these Kugerrand.

No gold in the bank…
• Over time currencies started to tie themselves to other currencies that were as
strong as gold so they didn’t have to keep gold in their banks.
• Instead they had agreements to be able to borrow the amount of money from
another country that they had in circulation them selves.
• The money was credit with another country.
• This was known as the end of the ‘gold standard’ and different countries
abandoned it at different times.
• The UK abandoned it in 1931.
• The USA abandoned it in 1971.
• A few countries still keep gold reserves (France, Germany, The USA and China) but
there is no longer any central place that backs money.
• It is worth what is worth because we agree it is worth that – the ‘
fiat’ system.

Contemporary transactions
• In contemporary times the vast majority of the value of transactions are not conducted using the
exchange of physical tokens but by the shift in the registration of wealth on centralised registers.
• Such a figure includes high value transactions which it would be unusual to use cash for; for example
purchasing property or stocks and shares virtually never take place using physical money.
• Thus when an item of value is purchased the participants do not exchange coins and notes but utilise
a central authority to note the reallocation of wealth from one individual to another.
• Banks and other financial services (such as credit card companies) record the transfer of wealth in
computerised systems.
• Indeed new money can be created by the government simply willing it into existence (quantitative
easing).
• Currently there are about ¼ of the total money supply in the UK available as notes.
• In terms of the actual number of transactions rather than the value, in the UK the number of digital
transactions overtook those that of physical ones in 2015 and the trend is set to continue with cash
gradually becoming less and less prevalent.

How we pay for things…
Source: Changing payments landscape, UK Payments Council 2017

Is there a problem with this?
• Given what you know about digital media and some of the issues of
surveillance, can you suggest there is anything problematic with this
trend of digital transactions taking over from cash ones?
• Spend 5 minutes discussing it in 2-3s
• Try to predict what certain freedom orientated people might see as troubling
with this trend.
• What does it allow certain powerful groups to do?
• What personal aspects of our life does it impact upon?

Transferring money
• Currency is ordinarily transferable between individuals
and companies.
• If the money exists in a material form, such as cash,
then ownership is transferred by giving the other person
our notes and coins.
• They then possess the value of the money that the
notes and coins depict - they can avail themselves of
this value by spending the money for other goods and
services.
• When we use electronic means we record the transfer
of ownership of money on centralised registers.
• Many of these central registers are held by banks and
similar financial organisations and we trust them to
keep accurate files

The role of banks
• Banks keep records of how much money we have with
them, credit card and loan companies record how
much we owe them.
• Thus our relative wealth is held not in our physical
hands but in (often) electronic records.
• We store our money in a bank and they lend it out to
other users or to other organisations who then loan it
to other users themselves.
• Thus banks serve as a third party, someone who we trust
who can record our wealth in their books.
• To provide this service banks make money by charging
interest on the money loaned to other people.
• This is the money provided to them by users and they
sometimes (but not always) pay users interest on this
money.
• The difference between the two rates of interest is how
banks make their money, they lend it for more than they
pay for it.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
• Bitcoin is an alternative to normal
electronic transfer in that users can
transfer money between themselves
without recourse to a trusted third party.
• This direct form of transfer is conducted
using the block chain database
technology.
• It is the most successful of a series of
alternative currencies that make use of
advances in computing and cryptography.
• It exist solely in the digital realm and
there is not physical manifestation of
them (though there have been several
instances where pseudo coins have been
produced bearing the bitcoin logo).
Bitcoin was launched through an academic-
styled paper published on the 31st October 2008
on a cryptography mailing list. It became
tradable in 2009.

Satoshi Nakamoto
• The paper was published by
someone called Satoshi Nakamoto.
• This was the only thing he did.
• Nobody knows who he is.
• There is a real Satoshi, but he does
not know anything about Bitcoin.
• A few other people have been
suspected of being him, the best
guess is Craig Wright who has half
proved it, but now is hiding and
wont say anymore.
• The best hypothesis is that it is a
pseudonym for a group of people.

Block chain
• Prior to the application of block chain technology, there were systems
by which money could be directly transferred between users through
electronic means however without recourse to a centralised register
such as a bank to police the transaction there was always the very
real risk that fraud could occur.
• The block chain offers a decentralised register of transactions which is
distributed all over the world. There is no single ownership or storage
of records by a third party, rather bitcoin operates by having its
register widely distributed.

Block chain
• Block chains are a form of database that makes use of
the principles of cryptography to produce a record that
cannot be changed but can be easily verified.
• The block chain is a distributed database which records
a list of actions or changes made.
• These changes are stored in a list of discrete
sequential, records or ‘blocks’. Blocks have two
particular features that greatly add to the security of
block chains.
• First, blocks are time stamped at their moment of creation –
they carry their exact time of their production within them.
• Second, each new block on the chain is created with an
inherent link to the preceding block. Therefore if someone
wanted to alter a block they would have to then alter all
subsequent blocks in the chain.
• These two features mean that once a block has been
created it cannot be altered though the information
can be easily verified.

Virtual wallets
• When a user wishes to make a transaction they send bitcoins from their ‘virtual wallet’
to another virtual wallet.
• The transaction is then recorded onto the block chain.
• Simply put, virtual wallets are a means to store bitcoins.
• They are pieces of client software that contains a secure folder on a computer (or in
cloud storage) in which store the digital credentials or the private keys used in public key
encryption systems of bitcoin to produce bitcoin addresses for transactions.
• The wallets either contain or access a copy of the block chain and consult it to determine
how many bitcoins are in a user’s wallet and whether they have enough to complete the
proposed transaction.
• Bitcoins can also be stored with an exchange or custodian or can be stored entirely off line in what
is termed a vault – a file storage system that cannot be accessed through the. This is typically
accomplished through either having a computer that is not connected to the any form of network
that is connected to the internet or through a removable device that stores the bitcoins until their
need.

Transferring coins
• To transfer money to someone’s wallet they will provide you
with an address, this is a list of between 26-35 numbers and
letters.
• The address is created by the bitcoin client - it is advised that
each address is used only once with a new one being created
for each transaction.
• For example this is an address:
3J98t1WpEZ73CNmQviecrnyiWrnqRhWNLy.
• This address is then entered as the destination of the
transaction.
• From an external viewpoint this address carries no
information as to the identity of the recipient.
• Though it may be possible to see what transactions have been
made to that address it is impossible to deduce to whom the
address actually belongs without additional information.

Writing to the block chain
• Once a transaction has been initiated, an instruction is broadcast to all
computers on the internet running the distributed bitcoin software.
• Groups of transaction are grouped together and then after a period of time
these are written to as a new block and added to the chain.
• The start of the new block is tied to the preceding block.
• Because blocks are added to and shared across the network, are time
stamped and back-linked, it is impossible to change a block once it has bee
created.
• Transactions cannot be reversed, the chain cannot be forged and it is easy
to see if a transaction has actually happened.

Making a block
• Every 10 minutes the transactions are collected together and Bitcoin
puts out a request that the work of writing the new block be done.
• This task is very arduous, it involves solving a very complex
mathematical puzzle.
• This task is done by ‘miners’ - users who have access to lots of
computing power - the task and requires special computers which
use graphics chips (they are very fast).
• Miners compete to complete the task and once it is done the new
block is added to the chain and all the transactions in that block are
completed.

How to get bitcoins…
• Only two ways to get bit coins:
• Buy them from an exchange using a virtual
wallet.
• Become a miner – the miners are rewarded
for their work with a fraction of a bitcoin if
they solve the puzzle first and with
transaction fees.
• The fees are small rewards so that their
transaction is done quickly. Users who do not
offer such rewards may find their transactions
take longer to be written to the block chain
and be finalised.
• Mining is arduous and may not be rewarded if
someone else solves the maths problem first.

Mining
• To encourage miners, every block that is
mined currently earns the miner 12.5BTC.
• This figure halves every 4 years (when
Bitcoin started the reward was 50BTC).
• It will drop to 6.25 in 2020.
• Bitcoin was designed with a maximum
number of coins that could exist.
• Currently there are about 16,824,000 in
existence (it increases by 12 every 10
minutes).
• It is finite – there can only ever be 21
million of them and they will all have been
mined by 2040.
Growth in number of bitcoins

Profitability of mining
• Each block chained solved ears the miner 12.5 BTC currently about
$100,000 plus the transaction fees of about $2500.
• Only one winner of each block.
• The more computing power you commit to mining the more chance
of winning.
• Lots of theft of computing power going on (hackers take over browser
windows and run processes in the background to mine – this slows
down your computer).

Environmental impact
• Oddly Bitcoin has a big environmental impact.
• The increased price drives up the desire to mine the coins.
• The mining uses computing power and thus electricity.
• A lot of it.
• The bitcoin network used more power than the Republic of
Ireland.
• As it becomes more worldwide it draws upon ‘dirtier’ energy –
many developing countries produce cheaper energy using coal
fired power stations.
• As the price rises so does the desire to mine, more people doing
it and the electricity amount rises.
• If the price reaches $50,000 the amount of energy will increase
10 fold.
• If BTC ever equals $1,000,000 (a long way yet but not impossible)
it will be profitable to use all the electricity production in the
world to mine it…

Rivals
• There are lots of alternate cryptocurrencies emerging - currently
there are 1384 different ones to choose from.
• Many use the same basic technologies with slight variations.
• Some have specific qualities :
• Litecoin – much quicker.
• Some are tied to specific industries:
• Ripple (for banking)
• Dentacoin (for dentists!)

Stealing cryptocurrency
• Bitcoin is also subject to being stolen.
• Thefts from exchanges:
• Hackers attack an exchange and transfer
the money to their own wallets.
• Coincheck lost $524 million NEM in a
hack attack.
• Heists:
• People held and threatened until they
transfer money.
• The nature of Bitcoin makes tracing
the money impossible.

Qualities and threats
• Avoids central banks – hard to trace.
• Covert – large transactions can be conducted without banks or govts
knowing about it.
• Anonymous – hides sender and receiver of money.
• Consider:
• How can it be used on the dark net?
• Think of advantages over existing money systems.
• What will be the consequences of wide spread adoption of bitcoin or another
cryptocurrency?
• For people,
• For banks,
• For government.

Dark Side of the Net Lecture 3 Bitcoin

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