Encryption

Recently, I came across Nillion’s whitepaper. Nillion at its core is trying to be a new decentralized encrypted data-processing layer. Here’s how it works.

All cryptocurrencies are eventually tied to a “private” key. You lose this key, and the funds are gone, forever. Millions worth of bitcoins have disappeared from the circulation due to lost keys. You can memorize the key by mapping it into passphrase consisting of memorizable words but if you forget that, like many others, the coins are unrecoverable. An alternative is to trust a centralized service like Coinbase, but then all the benefits of investing in a decentralized currency are gone. Lastly, one can use a hardware wallet, but again, if you lose the wallet, the key is lost. If you keep the key on your device, then a malware might target and try to steal it someday. Thus, even if you are bullish on cryptocurrencies, there are no good decentralized ways of holding a significant chunk of your net worth in cryptocurrencies. ...

If you have visited a HTTPS site and got an error message which you do not understand, then this article is for you. Here I cover the common errors encountered while browsing HTTPS sites.

We all use HTTPS and vaguely understands it as a more secure form of communication. This article is aimed at better understanding of HTTPS and how secure it is.

Indian Govt. has asked RIM (maker of the BlackBerry smartphone) to provide access to the data going through its servers for intelligence purposes and it appears that BlackBerry has accepted the demands. Due to the lack of understanding of encryption on the part of Indian media, misleading and ambiguous reports have been published on the same. This blog post is an effort to clarify the same.