Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked

More and more security holes are appearing in cryptocurrency and smart contract platforms, and some are fundamental to the way they were built.
By Mike Orcutt (article from MIT Technology Review, 2019)

Recent blockchain attacks reveal vulnerabilities in cryptocurrency exchanges. Blockchains offer exceptional security features to financial institutions, but hackers find way to break through.

Smart contracts are computer programs that run on blockchain networks. They automate cryptocurrency movements and facilitate legal contracts. They also permit venture capital investors to vote on fund allocations. In 2016, a smart-contract bug allowed hackers to receive money from venture capital fund Decentralized Autonomous Organization without registering the withdrawals, resulting in a $60 million loss.

In public blockchains, where source code is often visible, hackers eventually find and exploit smart-contract bug. AnChain. ai uses AI to scan smart-contracts for flaws. Others attempts to eliminate bugs by using a “formal verification” process to audit contract code. Users can report the flaws in exchange for rewards.

But at the end of the day, money exchange systems based upon blockchains are still dependent upon the behavior of people and human nature tend towards gaming the system.

The Language Instinct

By Steven Pinker

The author believes that language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution.

Fluent grammatical language can in fact appear in many kinds of people with severe intellectual impairments, like schizophrenics, Alzheimer’s patients, some autistic children, and some aphasics. For example, if you ask a normal child to name some animals, and you will get a standard inventory of pet store : dog, cat, horse, cow and pig. But if you ask a Williams syndrome child, you will get a more interesting menagerie : unicorn, sea lion, yak, pteranodon, koala, dragon, saber-tooth tiger etc. A person can have all the environmental advantages such as parents who will bathe you in language, but still not be a competent language user if you lack the right genes or just the right bits of brain.

One of his theory is on language of thought called metalese. He ask himself 2 questions :

1. Is thought dependent on words?
2. Or is our thought couched in some silent medium of the brain (language of thought called metalese) and thus merely clothed in words whenever we need to communicate them to a listener?

He believes that knowing a language is knowing how to translate mentalese into a string of words and vice versa. People without a language would still have mentalese. According to Pinker, mentalese exist in all species. and he argues that mentalese is simpler than language as it does not deal with Grammar or pronunciation.

 

Lord Edgware Dies

By Agatha Christie

Sometimes the more dramatic the person, that is the killer !

This is illustrated as the actress Jane Wilkinson. Despite in a marriage with Lord Edgware, she wants to marry Duke of Merton. However divorce is not an answer, as the Duke of Merton is particular about divorces. He will only marry Jane Wilkinson if her husband has died.

I like some of Hercule Poirot’s remarks.

“One will stand a good deal from a beautiful woman, my friend,” said Poirot with a twinkle.

 

 

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